High-z quasar hunter
I am a PhD student in Astronomy at Leiden Observatory.
I study high redshift quasars and the early universe they live in.
To me, there are three moments in research that I especially enjoy:
1) When I capture something on the fly. This stems from my quasar hunting experience with Joe, one of my advisor at Leiden.
One of the lesson I learnt from Joe is to understand the data as complete as we can during the observation, otherwise the probability of screwing-up will be boosted drastically.
By doing so, it's natural to actually find something in real-time. I really enjoy the feeling of coming home with
fruitful results after a long day of observation.
2) When I successfully predict something. The scope is quite broad, but the common reason is that in the field of astronomy, it's hard to
actually verify something. Therefore, every moment that I find out I can predict something, it's cheerful to me. By saying broad, it could be a
scientific prediction, or maybe a technical one. They are equally cheerful to me.
3) When I understand the logic of something thoroughly. I often find myself "swallowing a date without chewing", i.e.
I sometimes try to do things before I fully understand it. I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing, but it is by no means the best way to improve.
Now I try to urge myself to understand things as much as possible before I do anything, which actually feels very rewarding.
These thoughts establish my style and philosophy of research. I don't really confine myself to the fields that I am familiar with. With these
experiences, I think I can be independent and flexible enough in my research.