Recap: Terms 10-19
Olivia Wilkins
It's been more than two years since I gave my last 'term' recap. About once every other month since then, I've thought, "I really need to write that recap." I don't know if seeing the progress meter fill up has been too anxiety-inducing or if it's because the initial excitement of grad school wore off, but writing this has been a chore. I've had a working draft of this post since term 12, but I haven't been able to post it. Finally, here it is. Here's what I've been up to during the last couple of years of my Ph.D.
I'm nearing the end of my fifth year, which is exciting but unbelievable. As of June, I completed my 18th term at Caltech, which means that, based on the average of 5.7 years (or 23 terms) for a chemistry Ph.D. here, I'm a little over 80% of the way to becoming Dr. Wilkins. Wow.
The last time I wrote a term recap, that blue bar was just shy of 40%.
I expanded my science-inspired art efforts, adding a lot of inventory to my online store, launching not one but two Kickstarter campaigns, starting up a Patreon, and tabling at two zine fests. My first Kickstarter campaign was to fund an astronaut helmet enamel pin with the words "Don't forget to look up." A portion from each of these pins sold in my shop goes to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The second Kickstarter was for LGBTQ+ pride-inspired test tube enamel pins, a portion from which goes to oSTEM, inc. to support queer folks in STEM.
I traveled... a lot (again). Unlike 2018 where my work took me to five states outside California, in 2019 work took me to a completely different country! In July, I went to Santander, Spain, for an astrobiology summer school, for which I wrote a pretty awesome personal statement, if I do say so myself. For a week I was a literal science queen living in a palace up on a cliff of a peninsula jutting out into the sea. It. Was. Awesome. I learned all about prebiotic chemistry and how it relates to geology and the early Earth.
The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) on a cloudy fall day in West Virginia.
I also traveled to two conferences—the International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy (ISMS) in Illinois in June and the American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting in San Diego in August—to give research talks about my observations of methanol in Orion KL with ALMA. I ventured to Illinois with fellow Blake group member Griffin and to San Diego (or, as Griffin called it, Scam Diego) with group members/friends Cam, Kyle, and Griffin (along with my family), where we all had a blast sharing an Airbnb equipped with a giant sandbox.
Finally, I ventured up to Owens Valley to Bishop, CA, where I gave a talk about astrochemistry as part of the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) fall lecture series in conjunction with Cerro Coso Community College. I had a blast, sold some art, and got to visit the observatory with my family. Alex and Günther got to join me on a tour of the site, including a trek up a large single-dish radio telescope!
Of course, come Winter 2020, the traveling came to an abrupt end with COVID. I still had the opportunity to present at the virtual American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting this past January, but it would have been much more fun to spend a week in Phoenix with the fam.
I was elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (FRAS)! The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is a British professional society for astronomy and geosciences. I had to apply and get a letter of reference from a current fellow, after which the Society met to vote on whether candidates would be accepted into the society. As an FRAS, I get a nifty identification card that gives me access to the RAS headquarters in Burlington House in London. Speaking of which, after I was in Spain for the astrobiology summer school, the family and I spent some time in London, where I got to visit and tour the RAS headquarters! The building is full of science art, from portraits of prominent scientists to a stained glass window representing the intersection of astronomy and geosciences. The staff on site were so welcoming, making being a fellow even sweeter.
I’ve kept up with my love for teaching. This past winter, I taught Scientific Writing for the tenth (!) time. I also designed and taught a chemistry tutorial (Ch 101) course called Communicating Chemistry, in which students learned about different media for science communication and practiced them along the way. The class explored public speaking, popular writing, science art, and social media. The projects in the class were designed so students could test out different platforms of science communication with peer feedback and in a low-stakes environment. I also was a teaching assistant for Cosmochemistry with my friend Cam, which was a lot of fun. Perhaps the biggest responsibility was grading problem sets. We went out for coffee every couple of weeks to grade together. That was in the fall 2019 term. I miss those evenings at Starbucks so much.
I became mom to a pre-schooler (and now, soon to be kindergartener)! It is so hard to believe but Güni started pre-school in 2019. He absolutely loved it, which made me so happy (especially since he usually gave me the stickers he got when it was time to go home). His first year of pre-school was cut short because of the pandemic, and he did half a year of online pre-school before we moved east.
Speaking of….
We moved, again. TWICE. We were kicked out of what we thought was going to be our “forever” grad school home about a year into our five-year contract. We got an email letting us know that Caltech intended to sell our building, so we moved at the start of the 2020-2021 academic year. It was frustrating, but we liked the new place, even with its seafoam green tiles in the kitchen.
However, with the pandemic, the tiny apartment wasn’t so great anymore. The bedroom was small such that it could fit our bed and nothing else, so my desk and computer were in the family room. Trying to make progress on a Ph.D. from your kid’s playroom is about as easy as it sounds. So, last December, we moved to the East Coast. The move was a mix of emotions, and the road trip wasn’t what we had wanted it to be. But hey, at least we got G to two new states?
I wrote a book for the American Chemical Society. My favorite part of grad school the last couple of years has been submitting a proposal to write and illustrate a book about astrochemistry. It comes out this month as an e-book! The book is a short introductory/primer text for folks who are interested in diving into astrochemistry or just want to learn more about the field. It takes the reader through 13.8 billion years of (abridged) chemical history, from the formation of the first molecule (the helium hydride ion) to the chemistry of the solar system, including areas of terrestrial chemistry that came forth from investigations into astrochemical problems. I did a bunch of the illustrations, which is something I’m particularly proud of.
In other art news, I painted a mural at the public library in Mechanicsburg. I still need to share the final product, but for now, you can check out this post about my plans for the mural.