| Personal background |
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So, let's see. I'm a 24-year old grad student at Florida Tech, getting my Masters' degree in Space Sciences (concentrating in Stellar Astrophysics). I've got a BA from Boston University (go Terriers Hockey!). My current project at Florida Tech is a public reference web-based database of binary white dwarf stars.
I'm originally from New Hampshire (also known as Nude Hampster to those of us natives). I love astronomy (obviously), sports, and theatre. I've got a website (http://astro.bu.edu/~rissa50) if you want to check out more about me... |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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Alright, so I'm going to go off a bit on the topic of why I run SETI@home. It kind of harkens back to why I chose to do what I'm doing with my life. See, I took and Intro Astronomy course my freshman year at BU, and I loved it. It also coincidentally happened to be the year that "Contact" with Jodie Foster came out.
Now I know you're going to think it's ridiculous that I based my life on a movie, but I did. I saw that movie and it made me realize that there were way too many unanswered questions to the Universe. There had to more to it than most people know (and if you are an astronomer or a physicst, you know that there are not that many of us in the world. In fact, the year I graduated, there were only a 198 people in the United States getting a degree in Astrophysics, which is about less than 1% of the people that graduated that year).
Anyway, back to my story...So I thought, how can I make an impact? Well, obviously, I can get my degree and actually apply it in my field (surprisingly enough, you'd be amazed at the # of people I know that go into web design or computers and not applied physics or astronomy). The only way to get answers to questions is to ask the questions and try out methods until you get an answer. That's the way I see SETI@home. Someone said, "hey, think there's anyone else out there?" and then someone replied, "I'm not sure, but there must be a way to find out." And that's what they did. They came up with a way to test their question, and now each one of the SETI@home users is helping them answer it. And by helping, we're making it not just their question but our own. And we're probably getting a few of our own questions answered in the process. |
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