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Fall 2016 Alumni Spotlight: Nick Cowan
Who are you and when did you graduate from UW? My name is Nick Cowan and I graduated from the UW in 2009. Where are you and what are you working on now? I'm an assistant professor at McGill University in Canada. My appointment is split between two departments: Physics and Earth & Planetary Sciences. This is a good fit for me because I study distant planets using astronomical instruments. My office is in the McGill Space Institute, both because I study things "in space" and because the instruments I use are usually also in space. Finally, I'm a member of L'Institut de recherche sur les exoplanètes, at L'Université de Montréal; that's a slam dunk because I study exoplanets, to the exclusion of almost all else. So I get pulled in four directions at once, but benefit from lots of interesting and productive interactions with a diverse community of researchers. How is your current research related to astrobiology? My group works on the reduction and analysis of space telescope data to study exoplanet atmospheres. We figure out the atmospheric and surface temperature of planets, and work on ways to detect oceans and continents on exoplanets using next-generation space telescopes. In other words, we will be the ones telling you whether a planet is, in fact, habitable. In the longer term, the spectroscopic methods we currently apply to hot giant planets may eventually reveal a whiff of metabolism on a distant world. I also teach McGill's Astrobiology class. So although I'm more likely to refer to myself as an planetologist, I pass as an astrobiologist. What did you research in grad school as a UWAB student? I did my PhD in Astronomy with Eric Agol. We figured out how to map the atmospheric temperature of hot Jupiters, and the surfaces of rocky planets. That positioned me in between "observers" and "theorists" and I've been flouting that distinction ever since. In your opinion, what’s one of the most amazing things about astrobiology? Looking for life elsewhere/elsewhen is awesome. If you ever forget that because you're too deep in your isotopes or computer code, just take a moment to talk about your work to a layperson; that usually cheers me up. Anything else you want to add? From a professional standpoint, the most valuable things I gained in the Astrobiology program are the desire and ability to collaborate with researchers in disparate fields. It's rewarding, but hard work, because smart people in field X often have trouble understanding, let alone getting excited by, field Y. The farthest I've ventured to date is working with geophysicists and cosmologists, but I'll keep working on it. |
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