Maybe there’s a better way to keep track of these, but in the meantime, here’s some media appearances I’ve done for outreach lately! Guest scientist in CBBC Show “Out-of-this-World” S1E6 (Aliens) – (link only works in the UK, sorry!) Special guest on SETI Institute SETI Live show “Second-Guessing Aliens”
Author: Sofia Zara Sheikh
I’m Starting to Hate Einstein
I’m starting to hate Einstein. Yeah, I said it. Brilliant. Famed. Genius. Hailed. Innovative. Transformed. Singlehandedly. Greatest Physicist. Magnum Opus. These are the words that the students in my Astronomy Communication class use to talk about Einstein. And they’re not alone, of course! They didn’t pull these ideas out of thin air. Einstein has been […]
Rainbow in the Dark
This post is a layperson’s explanation of my paper Choosing a Maximum Drift Rate in a SETI Search: Astrophysical Considerations. Seem familiar? This particular essay is cross-posted on the Berkeley SETI Research Center blog here. Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine you’re out in space with your friend and they shine a green light at […]
Breakthrough Discuss 2019 (3/3): Conference Meta-Commentary
Welcome to my third and final post about Breakthrough Discuss 2019 (here’s Part 1 and Part 2)! It’s time to get ~meta~. As scientists, we spend a good deal of our professional energy on conferences. We prepare (never early enough) for talks and posters, we spend packed days in conference rooms frantically networking and scribbling notes […]
Breakthrough Discuss 2019 (2/3): Concepts to Ponder
Welcome to Part 2 of 3 of my Breakthrough Discuss 2019 series (start with Part 1). This post focuses on concepts that I didn’t know before, pieces of information that caused me to change my perspective on something, and questions that I’m still thinking about post-conference. So without further ado: Defining Life One operative definition […]
Breakthrough Discuss 2019 (1/3): Bite-Sized Thoughts
Over the past few days, I’ve been attending the Breakthrough Discuss 2019 conference in Berkeley, California. In general, the conference focuses on space exploration and the search for life in the universe, and this year’s theme was “Migration of Life in the Universe”. As of a few months ago, I’ve been trying a new strategy […]
AAAS 2019 Pt. 3: Gesture as a Shortcut to Thought
Welcome to Part 3 of my AAAS 2019 conference series! For more background on the conference, see the first post in this series. This post will be structured a little differently because the event was a topical lecture instead of a multi-presenter panel. This research was partially conducted by and entirely presented by Dr. Susan Goldin-Meadow, Professor […]
AAAS 2019 Pt. 2: How People Learn
Here’s the second part of a multi-part series on the things I learned from the AAAS 2019 conference. For more background on the conference, see the first post in this series. Without further ado, here are some fun facts, resources, themes, solutions, and jargon that I learned at AAAS about… How People Learn From the […]
AAAS 2019 Pt. 1: Fake News
Here’s the first part of a multi-part series on the things I learned from the AAAS 2019 conference. AAAS is the American Association for the Advancement of Science (not to be confused with the astronomers’ AAS) which works on science policy, education, advocacy, and diversity and inclusion issues. I primarily attended the conference as the […]
Dual-Anonymous Reviewing: The Future of Astronomy
Results from the Hubble Cycle 26 TAC The Problem with the Hubble TAC If you are a research group that wants time to observe with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), you need to submit a proposal to the Telescope Allocation Committee (TAC). Once a year, the TAC receives, in a usual cycle, proposals for 4-5X […]