Personal Story
Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue31 1–31 August 2022
I was born in Hong Kong, one of the most densely populated international cities in the world. Because of this, I had never built a true connection to the Universe hidden beyond the heavy light pollution growing up. Though, with my interests in physics, I still remember the joy learning about stars as the factory of heavy elements from a documentary during my childhood, and the fascination realising that the Newton's equations in mechanics can be applied to explain the orbital motion of planets during my teenage years.
For my Bachelor degree at the University of Hong Kong, I had initially opted for a major in physics only. This was also when I joined the Astronomy Club at the university, where I met lots of amazing people interested in the many aspects of astronomy, including the history, lores, stargazing and, of course, astrophysics! My appreciation for the connection between physics and astronomy kept growing, prompting me to study astrophysics more "officially" and elected astronomy as my second major.
Upon graduation, I continued for Masters at the same university, and analysed radio polarisation data to study the magnetic field structure of the Snail pulsar wind nebula. I also had the amazing opportunity to observe using the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) near Narrabri NSW, which was also the first time that I observed (with my own eyes!) the night sky at a truly dark site. I still remember seeing the southern Milky Way (can't say I could identify the Emu, sadly) and the "inverted" Orion in summer! And of course, it was also a lovely sight seeing all the roos relaxing next to the antennas.
In 2015 I decided to take a leap in my life --- moving abroad to Germany for my PhD! It was definitely not an easy choice to leave home from my family and friends to a country with a completely different culture, and it definitely didn't help that I had zero knowledge in German (und jetzt, nur ein bisschen). However, this is also a choice that I did not regret one bit. I truly enjoyed my time in Germany! Professionally, Bonn is amongst the best places to be in the world for radio astronomy, especially for studying magnetic fields in galaxies. Off work, I relished the quiet environment of the city, which has a similar population as Canberra.
I finished my PhD in late 2019, and was planning to leave Bonn for Canberra in late 2020 to join RSAA as a postdoc. As you can certainly tell, the move was not easy since the world was turned upside down at that time as well. Thankfully, I could work for ANU remotely from Bonn, as a cooperative agreement was reached between the two institutes for my situation. I certainly had it easy compared to many other people during those hard times! This situation lasted about 15 months, until the Australian government finally opened the international border.
In early 2022, I finally joined RSAA officially, and thus far have settled in well in Canberra. I've been enjoying the environment up at Mount Stromlo, both the people and the wildlife (saw some kangaroos with joeys in their pouches just a few weeks back!). With the weather warming up again soon, I'm eager to head out there to explore the outdoors for hiking and landscape photography!
Yik Ki (Jackie) Ma
