Dr Cynthia Chiang has been addicted to tinkering and exploring for as long as she can remember.

And, said the physicist and cosmologist now based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, she felt fortunate to have found a career that allowed her to continue doing those things every day.

Chiang is a senior lecturer at the universitys Astrophysics and Cosmology Research Unit (ACRU) where she focuses on, among other areas, observational cosmology and using precision measurements to constrain the history, evolution, and structure of the universe.

She and astrophysics PhD students, Liju Philip, Ridhima Nunhokee and Heiko Heilgendorff recently returned from a research trip to Marion Island, located in the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean in South Africa, where they conducted work on the Probing Radio Intensity at high-Z from Marion (PRIZM) telescope.

PRIZM is a low-frequency radio telescope which collects information about the universe during the cosmic dawn, which is the period a few hundred million years after the big bang when the first stars in the universe formed.

The light from these first stars is too dim for optical telescopes to see, therefore they have never been measured directly.

The project was designed to make this measurement and data received from this telescope could help in determining when the first stars and galaxies formed.

Chiang specialises in instrumentation and data analysis for a variety of cosmic microwave background experiments.

In 2014, she spent two months in the Antarctic where she participated in Spider, a project studying the earliest moments of the universes creation.

The university said in a press release at the time that six telescopes were launched into the stratosphere with a giant helium-filled balloon, which swelled to roughly the size of Durbans Kings Park stadium at its 35km cruising altitude.

From this lofty height, it observed the faint leftover heat from the Big Bang. This afterglow, known as the cosmic microwave background, contains valuable clues that will help unravel the mysteries of our universes explosive beginnings.

Chiang told The Mercury this week: I consider myself to be a physicist and cosmologist rather than an astronomer, strictly speaking. Isidor Isaac Rabi is quoted as saying: I think physicists are the Peter Pans of the human race. They never grow up and they keep their curiosity.

For me, wanting to learn about the natural world has always been in my blood.

Chiang was born and raised in Illinois in the USA, and did her undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).

(The institution) has a strong engineering department, and I feel very lucky that I had a chance to see so many people building amazing machines. Seeing that kind of inspiring hands-on work really cemented my career direction in instrumentation development.

But, it wasnt until graduate school that she turned specifically to astrophysics.

I attended the California Institute of Technology for my PhD, and it was by pure chance that a classmate suggested that I check out the astro guy and his labs in the basement.

That astro guy, she said, was Andrew Lange, who ultimately became her PhD advisor.

I will never forget stepping foot into the observational cosmology labs for the first time. The instrumentation was incredible, and it was the kind of work I had always wanted. I was instantly hooked, and there was no turning back.

Chiang credits her parents for much of her success.

I come from an academic family: my mother is an astronomer, and my father is a physicist. My mother can solve anything and has the sharpest wit of anyone I know, and my father is MacGyver and can build anything from nothing.

Chiang said that, while she had never been the target of any kind of overt sexism, she was aware that other women were often at the receiving end of such attacks.

One of my students once asked me if anyone had ever said to me that I cant study mathematics or physics because Im female. She had apparently received this comment more than once in the past. I was absolutely livid to hear this. I tend to be outspoken, so I told her that the next time this happens, she should respond by saying: Just because you think mathematics or physics is hard doesnt mean that everyone else does too.

What is her advice for aspirant cosmologists and physicists?

My advice is gender-neutral: always try to run with the best, play to your strengths, be assertive in finding new opportunities to learn, and keep your curiosity alive.

The Mercury

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