Personal Stories

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue17 1–30 June 2021

My parents migrated to Australia from India in 1995, and I was born and raised in the cultural melting pot that is western Sydney. We had a wide circle of family friends who had also migrated here from India in the 90's, so I grew up with a large group of friends around my age. Every few years I would visit my extended family in India with my parents, but it was our second 'family' in Sydney that kept me rooted in our vibrant culture. We were all close neighbours, so weekends would often involve sleeping over at each other's houses, watching Bollywood movies, dressing up in Indian clothes for parties, and eating copious amounts of delicious food. It felt pretty normal when I was young, but now I know that I was quite lucky to have such a colourful upbringing. 

Going to school in suburban western Sydney, the classrooms were always diverse and I had many friends who were first-generation Australians like me. I fell in love with astronomy when we studied space for the first time, in Year 2. Seven-year-old me could not get enough of it, and I would spend evenings after school googling everything that I could about the solar system or supernovae. Sorry to scare you, but yes, I did grow up with the internet, and have no memories of the 90's! The next year we went on a family trip to Dubbo, where I was more excited about visiting Dubbo Observatory than the zoo. After seeing Saturn through the telescope that night, I knew I had to be an astronomer. 

I went to a public girls’ high school in Sydney, infamous for its pink uniforms worn with baby blue socks. I was still passionate about astronomy, but felt uncertain about pursuing it as a career. Conveniently at this time my younger brother was best friends with astrophysicist Scott Croom's son. I was able to get some timely advice from him just before university applications were due.

I did my undergrad at the University of Sydney, where I chose to double major in physics and chemistry. I had always excelled at chemistry, but found myself struggling with physics. Fewer and fewer women were sticking with physics, and many of my friends had dropped the major. My love for the astronomy topics kept me going to the final year. I did my first research project with Joss Bland-Hawthorn, where we modelled metallicity gradients. Joss ended up being a great mentor, who assured me that average undergrad grades didn't define my performance as a researcher. I ended up getting the best marks I'd ever received in physics on that research project. Without his advice I would likely not be here doing a PhD. 

I was able to attend the Winter School here at RSAA in 2017. I was impressed by the breadth of research done here, and decided to move to Canberra to do Honours at ANU. I was fortunate enough to stay to do my PhD, where I do Reverberation Mapping of AGN with the OzDES, supervised by Rob Sharp and Brad Tucker. The highlight has been all the observing I’ve been lucky enough to do, with 2dF/AAOmega at the AAT, DECam on the Blanco 4m in Chile, and the 2.3m of course. I’ve had a great experience at Stromlo over the last few years, made even better by the amazing friendships I’ve made here!

Umang Malik