Graduating UI senior takes ’roundabout’ journey to astronomy – Iowa Now

Even Erin Maier is surprised how her academic journey at the University of Iowa has turnedout.

The graduating senior from Hudson, Ohio, enrolled at the UI to study creative writing, then accidentally fell into astronomy, shesays.

Its a good thing she didfor her and for theuniversity.

Hometown: Hudson, Ohio

Area of study: Physics and astronomy

Graduation: May 2017

Activities and honors:

Maier helped design and build sophisticated instruments for UI-commissioned telescopes that are exploring the cosmos and yielding insights into some of the most fundamental questions about theuniverse.

Along the way, she twice won National Science Foundationsponsored internships, is first author on two peer-reviewed papers, and nabbed a coveted Goldwaterscholarship.

Maier will receive aBachelor of Science in physics and astronomy on Saturday, May 13, and is one of more than 4,800 UI students who will graduate during commencement ceremonies at the end of the springsemester.

After commencement, Maier will head to the Graduate Program in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Arizona to pursue a doctorate with a research focus on ground-basedinstrumentation.

Its been a roundabout, strange path, but my experience here has helped me figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life, Maiersays.

Maier had no clue the UI had a physics and astronomy major when she stepped on campus in the fall of 2013. She chose the UI largely based on her high school English teachers recommendation for the universitys strength in creativewriting.

Her academic focus changed in the beginning of her firstyear when she took a General Astronomy class about the solar system taught by Robert Mutel, professor in the UIDepartment of Physics and Astronomy.

I didnt have to take that class, says Maier, adding she had enough advanced placement credits to fulfill that academic requirement. I took it because I wanted to, and Im glad Idid.

Unbeknownst to Maier, Mutel was scouting talent to help with various research projects, a practice he has employed for some time for himself and his colleagues in thedepartment.

Supported by an Iowa Center for Research by Undergraduates fellowship, Maier spent her first summer in Iowa City analyzing radio emissions from the center of the Milky Way with Cornelia Lang, UI associate professor in physics and astronomy. She also helped Mutel install a telescope in the Van Allen Observatory, located on the roof of Van Allen Hall, whichis used for classes and public viewingevents.

Erin and I spent that first summer together working on understanding the complex magnetic properties of the core of our galaxy, Lang says. She is delightful to work with and one of the most passionate and hard-working students Ive gotten to know here at the University ofIowa.

The summer after her sophomore year, Maier ventured to Northern Arizona University and partnered with other undergraduates to study how turbulence in spiral galaxies is associated with star formation. That stint, funded by the NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, led to Maier being chosen as first author on two papers, one of which has been published in The Astronomical Journal. (The other paper also will be published in The Astronomical Journal.)

Though she enjoyed interpreting data gathered by the telescopes, Maier began leaning toward a focus ininstrumentation.

I just started thinking, What if I was building those instruments? That would be so cool, shesays.

Fortunately, Mutel had some ideas. In the spring of 2015, he invited six undergraduates, including Maier, to take a semester-long research class in which they prepared to install a new, $125,000 telescope funded by the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust. The students divided into teams to learn the ins and outs of telescope operation, instrumentation, andassembly.

That May, Mutel and the students traveled to Arizona. The telescope, called the Iowa Robotic Observatory, arrived in a box the size of a car, Mutel recalls, like some massive Lego set that needed to be built fromscratch.

They tested the instrument; they assembled the main telescope and the mount; they tested its capabilities; and they put on the instruments, the spectrometer, the camera, the main wheel, et cetera, Mutel says. They basically made it an operating telescope in a few days. It was very impressive,actually.

It came with some tense moments, though. For three days, Maier and her fellow students were unable to test the telescope, deterred by cloudy nights. On the last night, Maier and two others didnt sleep, instead capturing as many clear-sky viewings aspossible.

We came out of observing at five in the morning, and we were like, Yeah, we did this! shesays.

They were very dedicated, I can tell you, Muteladds.

The first images gathered by the Iowa Robotic Observatory havedrawn more than 461,000 views on the image-sharing platformImgur.

They were beautiful, gorgeous images that with the previous telescope would have taken much longer, with a fraction of the quality, Maiersays.

Maier was awarded a second NSF REU scholarship to help build a camera that would allow astronomers to make observations of star clusters in two optical wavelengths simultaneously, which cuts the background clutter in the images that are being observed. The instrument was successfully tested at the McDonald Observatory in westTexas.

At the end of this, any doubts I had with my interest in instrumentation had vanished, Maiersays.

Maier volunteered at the Van Allen Observatory and otherwise availed herself of any opportunity she could find to learn more and beinvolved.

I would say shes what you might call a good citizen, Mutel says. Shes been involved in the Society of Physics students (a student leadership program). She goes to seminars in the department. In that sense, shes much more like faculty and graduate students, who are invested in the life of thedepartment.

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Graduating UI senior takes 'roundabout' journey to astronomy - Iowa Now