Profile
Dave Constable
My CV
-
Education:
I went to Stepps Primary School, just outside of Glasgow, before moving to Chryston High School. After I finished school, I went to the University of Strathclyde, to study physics as both an undergraduate and postgraduate.
-
Qualifications:
Standard Grade: Physics, Maths, Geography, Chemistry, English, Computer Science, Physical Education, French.
Highers: Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Geography, English, Business Management, Computer Science.
Advanced Highers: Maths.
M.Sci. Physics
M.Sc. High Power Radio Frequency Engineering
P.hD. Physics -
Work History:
Sales assistant at Boots;
Bar staff at a local hotel;
Sales assistant at Next;
Research Assistant at the University of Strathclyde;
Research Associate at the University of British Columbia;
Research Associate at Lancaster University. -
Current Job:
Currently, I’m a Senior Research Associate in the Physics Department at Lancaster University.
-
About Me:
I’m Dave, and I am a planetary scientist at Lancaster University, where I study planets within our solar system. When I’m not researching science, I spend a lot of time with my wife and two young children.
-
Read more
I’m Dave, and I live near Lancaster, with my wife, and my two sons (my eldest is 2 years old, my youngest is six months old). I grew up in the east-end of Glasgow and left when I had to travel for work.
I love playing board games, video games (although I don’t have a lot of free time for this now!), watching films and TV series. My favourite kind of things to watch are science fiction and horror – I love scary films.
I also love travelling and seeing the world; I’m very lucky in that I’ve gotten to go to lots of interesting places with my job – Italy, India, Switzerland, the United States, Japan, Denmark, Greece and Canada. I even lived in Canada for a year, and it was so a lot of fun. One of the best things about seeing the world is experiencing people’s different way of life, and all the different and exciting foods.
-
Read more
My work involves studying the aurora at the giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn. Most of the planets in our solar system (except Venus and Mars) have magnetic fields. The magnetic fields protect the planet from charged particles ejected from the sun, by acting as a kind of force field. The shape of the magnetic field around a planet is called the magnetosphere. The particles from the sun are called the solar wind, as they are like a wind which blows through the solar system.
At a planet, some of the particles make it all the way to the atmosphere, by travelling along the magnetic field lines. At Earth, they can travel into the atmosphere close to the North and South poles, where they can react with the oxygen and nitrogen in the air and make very colourful patterns of light in the night sky. These lights are called aurora, or sometimes called the Northern lights or Aurorae Borealis.
Aurora can occur at other planets too, although it is not visible with the eye. At Jupiter, the aurora is at wavelengths that human can’t see – the ultraviolet, infrared and as radio-waves. We need special equipment to be able to “see” the aurora, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, which took the picture below. This aurora is at ultraviolet wavelengths. The aurora at Jupiter is very powerful, much more powerful than at Earth.
My job is to try and understand better how the aurora at Jupiter works. I do this by running computer simulations of how different particles travel within Jupiter’s magnetosphere. The computer simulations take a very long time to finish, so I use a supercomputer to make them run faster. By looking at lots of different things, like the amount of different types of particles, or how fast they are travelling, I can try and understand how the particles at Jupiter fall into its atmosphere and make aurora. I can then compare what my simulations say to what a spacecraft, like Juno (below), sees while it is orbiting Jupiter.
-
My Typical Day:
I get up early, have coffee, go to work, run computer simulations, read scientific papers, have more coffee, analyse my simulation results, drink more coffee. I drink lots of coffee!
-
Read more
I’m often awake very early, usually being woken by one of my sons wanting breakfast! I can’t start the day without some coffee, so I always have a cup with breakfast (cup #1).
I get to my office around 9 am, after dropping my eldest son at nursery. My office is quite big, and I share it with 10 other people. I plug my laptop in, make more coffee (cup #2), and look at the results of my computer simulations and decide what I should do next. A lot of my job is analysing the data from my simulations. They can take a very long time to finish, and so they will often run overnight or over a weekend. I’ll also answer some e-mails, and maybe have meetings with some of the people I work with. Before lunch, I’ll have another cup of coffee (cup #3).
I usually have lunch with my work friends. We will try and do a crossword, then we chat about lots of different things: what our plans for the rest of the day, where we’re going on holiday next, something cool we saw on TV, a cool book someone read.
In the afternoon, I’ll try and read some new research on something related to my research. This is a really good way for me to stay up to date on all the interesting things happening in the world of planetary science. I’ll often spend the rest of the afternoon writing a new piece of computer code or updating my logbook with what I have been doing.
When I leave work, I’ll pick my son up from nursery, go home, have dinner and spend time with my family before bed.
-
What I'd do with the prize money:
I’d like to visit my old high school and talk to students there about space science.
I’d also like to spend some money on computer hardware which I can take into schools to allow students to experiment with data from real spacecraft.
-
My Interview
-
How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Curious, thoughtful, geek!
What did you want to be after you left school?
I always wanted to be an astronaut.
Were you ever in trouble at school?
A lot when I was very young; my headteacher called my mum to the school once!
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Metallica
What's your favourite food?
Pizza!
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
1) To take a round the world trip, and see all the amazing places that I've not been able to visit. 2) Be more confident in myself. 3) For there to be more hours in the day to do everything I want!
Tell us a joke.
An electron and a proton walk into a bar. "Are you sure this is the right place?" the electron asks. "Of course," says the proton, "I'm positive."
-