Astronomical and space instrumentation research

[Music plays and an image appears of the Earth against a night sky, and inset hexagonal images appear showing a female working on a computer, a satellite dish, and a female working in a Space lab, and text appears: Space Careers Wayfinder]

[Image changes to show Noelia Martinez talking to the camera, and then images move through of an aerial view of the ANU, and then a close view of one of the buildings, and text appears: Noelia Martinez, Postdoctoral Researcher, ANU]

Noelia Martinez: I am Noelia Martinez, I’m a postdoctoral researcher at the Australia National University and we are at the Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre, part of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

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I moved to Australia in 2019, so I’ve been here about two years now, a bit over two years.

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I grew up in a town called Lugo, it is part of Galicia in Spain, a region that is in the north west.

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I grew up there and I moved away from my hometown for university.

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I really like living here, I really like living in Canberra. I really like the outdoors, all the green areas that are around.

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When I was at a school, I didn’t really know what I wanted to study.

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I knew that I wanted to do some science or technology related career path but I didn’t even know what.

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In high school I studied a lot of science subjects, maths, physics, chemistry. I really like science subjects.

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I really had a very nice math teacher who actually wanted me to study maths but pure math was not really my thing.

[Images move through to show formulas on an iPad, and then Noelia and another male looking at different equipment on a table]

Then I chose industrial engineering because it gave me a lot of options for like after finishing uni.

[Images move through to show a walkway into a building, a side view of Noelia walking along a corridor in the building, and a view of the Earth from Space]

What I do is build instrumentation to correct for the atmospheric effect on the light.

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So, the Earth is surrounded by the atmosphere, so any light travelling through it gets disturbed by the atmosphere.

[Image changes to show Noelia talking to the camera, and then images move through to show a side view of Noelia working on a laptop, the screen she is working on, and a satellite above the Earth]

So, my job applies to astronomy too, in order to like see the universe better, but it also applies to like observe the satellites, also the space debris, and also to improve laser communications with satellites.

[Images move through to show Noelia talking to the camera, and then different views of a laser beam communicating with a satellite]

Right now we use mostly radio waves to communicate with satellites but if we use laser communications we can increase the amount of information that we send.

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We have better and better instrumentation in the satellite so the amount of data that they are producing is larger compared to 20 years ago.

[Images move through to show Noelia working with a piece of equipment and looking at a computer screen, a close view of the laptop screen, and the Moon on the computer screen]

So, we need what we call adaptive optic systems to correct for the atmospheric effect in order to see faint astronomical objects.

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So, when we look at the Moon it’s very bright so we can see it properly but if we want to look at galaxies and things that are far away then we need these systems.

[Images move through to show Noelia working with a machine, Noelia and a group talking around a table, a diagram on a screen, Noelia talking with the group, and an aerial view of a CSIRO site]

To be good at my job, I will need skills like obviously technical skills, maths, physics, but we also need communications skills because we work in multidisciplinary teams with a lot of people with different backgrounds and different expertise. So, we need to communicate properly.

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You don’t really need to know about astronomy to the job. You really need to know what the astronomers want.

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So, astronomers are kind of our clients, so they express their needs, their requirements for our instrumentation and we just need to communicate with them.

[Image changes to show Noelia and a female talking together, and the camera zooms in on them talking]

When you come across to something that you don’t really understand, there are a lot of resources available.

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Obviously there are a lot of things online fortunately now, but then it’s also the people around you. People around you is the best resource that you can get.

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So, my career path is a bit random. So, I studied industrial engineering in a city in Spain.

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Then I got an internship in an astronomical institution.

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So, at that time there was a big economic crisis in Spain and I really wanted to do some internship somewhere. I had a lot of applications, so I applied for everything.

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But because of this economic crisis there were not too many vacancies available.

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So, then I got this internship in the Astronomical Institute in the Canary Islands. I was there for the summer.

[Image changes to show a building, and the camera pans down to show Noelia working on a laptop outside the building, and then the image changes to show a view of people working inside the ESA]

I learned what a telescope was pretty much and I became interested in astronomical instrumentation, came back to where I was studying at uni, finished my Masters, moved to the Netherlands as a junior engineer in the Detectors Department of the European Space Agency in the Netherlands.

[Image changes to show a view of the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, and text appears: Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, Canary Islands]

And then from there I moved back to the Canary Islands to start work on instrumentation again. And then I studied my PhD there in building an adaptive optics system for a ground to Space optical communications.

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And from there moved here to Australia.

[Images move through to show an aerial view looking down on the Black Mountain site, Noelia walking inside the building, and Noelia talking to a colleague and looking at a computer together]

My final advice to anyone willing to work in this field is that it’s OK not to have a plan. You don’t have to stress about it. There are a lot of ways of getting here.

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Do what you like and try to find your way through.

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Any advice that I would give to younger women is if you like it just go for it and apply because even if it’s a male dominated world, it’s getting more and more inclusive.

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So, it’s going to be OK.

[Images move through to show radio telescopes with a sunset background, Noelia talking to the camera, and then various people writing formulas on a blackboard]

 So, if someone wants to work in the Space industry, subject choices that you can make in high school are the technology subjects, maths, physics, chemistry.

[Image changes to show Noelia talking to the camera, and then the camera zooms in on Noelia talking]

But also there are other types of jobs in the Space industry that are not related to science, like Space lawyer or ethical usage of Space, things like that that you can also go and study.

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So, in my spare time I do a lot of sports.

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I really like the outdoors. I go trail running.

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I ran two ultra marathons this year.

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An ultra marathon is anything that is over 50km.

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So, the ones that I ran this year was 100km each.

[Image changes to show a close view of hands patting dogs in cages at a shelter, and then the image changes to show a close view of a dog being petted]

And apart from that I also like volunteering. I volunteer at the RSPCA in the shelter here in Canberra.

[Image changes to show Noelia talking to the camera, and then the image changes to show a medium view of Noelia talking to the camera and then laughing]

I like it so much that I even adopted a dog. My dog’s name is Etna like the mountain.

[Music plays and the image changes to show the CSIRO logo and text: CSIRO, Australia’s National Space Agency, Space Careers Wayfinder 2022 except where otherwise indicated, The Space Careers Wayfinder materials may be used, reproduced, communicated and adapted free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes provided all acknowledgements associated with the material are retained, Space Careers Wayfinder is a collaboration between the CSIRO and ANU]

 

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