Mona Kessel

When I was growing up I didn't know I would be a space-physicist. I didn't even consider it as an option because I didn't know about it. But I always loved math and I liked physics. I didn't like other sciences as much. I never took a biology course in my life. I didn't want to cut things up -- I don't know why, I cut up chickens now for cooking. Looking back I realize that what I enjoyed most was problem solving. This probably explains why my favorite books have always been mysteries.

At my high school, physics wasn't offered until my senior year. Instead of other science, I took every possible math class as well as many classes of English, and three years of French. I use the training in writing far more than I ever thought I would. And French is useful because I travel to Europe fairly often. In France and even in Italy and Russia I have been able to limp through in my limited French and find my way around, check into hotels and find something to eat!

When I finally did take physics, I liked it so much that I wanted to take more. The high school counselors suggested engineering as a career choice and not knowing any better I decided to pursue this. However, at Baker University, I discovered that physics was a much broader field than I had imagined and I switched my major. I ended there with a B.S. degree in Physics.

Afterwards, I considered going into operations research -- like the people at Federal Express who design computer programs that schedule and track packages across the country -- I thought that would be interesting but physics was harder. I would have felt that I was not challenging myself to go for anything less. But first I had a brief stint working for Southwestern Bell as an engineer to earn money for graduate school. It was lucrative -- especially compared with the years of being a starving student, but not creative. And what that taught me is I did not want to work at a nine to five job. It helped push me back to graduate school -- after two years I started at the University of Kansas.

While trying to decide which field of physics to concentrate on, I talked to other graduate students and got very fired up with enthusiasm for the field of space physics. I never turned back. While I was there learning about the Sun-Earth connection, I also took on something less ethereal -- managing the softball team. I found out that I could manage pretty effectively -- if I was interested in it.

In graduate school, I was one of only a handful of women studying physics. And even now, only about 10 percent of space physicists are women. In some fields, top professional women have to battle sexism as well as doing research. But so far I haven't had any problems. Physics is hard enough that if you do it well, you're respected, you're not put down.

While at the University of Kansas I started working on shock waves, a study which has continued off and on throughout my career. I finished my Ph.D. in five and a half years and then left with my physicist husband for work in England. From the fall of 1986 to the fall of 1990, I worked at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory. There I continued my work on shocks, concentrating first on the Earth's bow shock and then on cometary bow shocks. We moved back to the states when my husband took a one-year post-doctoral position at Emory University. I taught beginning college astronomy and had our second child. After that year I took a position with NASA and we moved to Greenbelt.

My official title is astrophysicist but I'm actually a space-physicist. I study the environment between the Sun and the Earth -- as opposed to astrophysicists who study the space beyond our local solar system. My present study is to investigate the dynamic nature of Earth's bow shock, and gain a new understanding of the bow shock's position and motion. Earth's bow shock represents the outermost boundary between that region of geospace which is influenced by Earth's magnetic field and the undisturbed interplanetary medium. This boundary is important because it is here that the solar wind is slowed, heated, and partially deflected around the Earth's magnetosphere. The bow shock moves in response to solar wind variations and may experience oscillations as solar wind structures modulate and pass through the shock.

All of this I find fascinating. I am making use of the vast data resources of the International Solar Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) program. The combination of solar monitors and Earth orbiting satellites in ISTP provide a "space laboratory" in which to study plasma and field phenomena. The satellites take measurements as they fly through an area. The data is sent back to the earth in a long string of zeros and ones -- called binary code. We break this up into useful sections and then analyze the sections. This information won't change many lives. It's not an earth shattering sort of revelation. Most of the research done by scientists adds to knowledge in small ways. But when you add all of that up together it means a greater understanding of the environment.

Space Physics is a relatively new field. It really got going in the 1960s when the first research satellites were launched. Before then it was all theory with no way to prove any of it, because there hadn't been any measurements. The present measurements are the basis of my research. But the research only takes about a quarter to a third of my time. Another big chunk of time goes to the ISTP project, assisting to get the data from many instruments from many countries into one common format so that they can be usefully and unambiguously compared. And then helping to design and maintain the world-wide-web based system that supports the international community in analyzing and interpreting the data.

We recently had a proof of concept of this system as a large coronal mass was ejected from the sun on January 6, 1997. We saw the solar images first and then watched the magnetic cloud reach Earth three days later, compressing the magnetosphere. Two days later, near the end of the storm, a Telstar satellite used for earthquake information failed. (see Washington Post, Baltimore Sun and USA Today front page articles on January 23, 1997). It's exciting because we are able to see, in nearly real time, the Sun-Earth connection.

I have also managed the work of summer students for the past 4 summers, I coordinate with colleagues on other projects, and participate in NASA's outreach program speaking to students and teachers about my work. I also have two daughters, aged 7 and 5. Between their homework, piano lessons, chinese lessons, and reading, our early evenings are always full. I occasionally find time for cooking and reading on my own. All of which keeps me so busy that I often end my day as I start it, by working on my Macintosh computer -- but this one is on a desk at home. This field is not a nine to five job. And I like it that way. I find I always have ideas going around in my head.

Archive of chats with Mona:

• 10-13-99 QuestChat
• 9-17-98 QuestChat
• 9-30-97 Web Chat
• 10-28-97 Web Chat
• 3-10-98 Web Chat