Caoimhe Rooney: NASA, Exoplanet Atmospheres & Making Maths Fun

 

Meet Caoimhe Rooney…

Dr Caoimhe Rooney is a mathematician at NASA and searches for life throughout the universe by studying distant planets, known as exoplanets.

Following an undergraduate degree in mathematics at Trinity College Dublin, with a scholarship year at UCLA, Caoimhe achieved a PhD in Industrially Focused Mathematical Modeling at the University of Oxford.

In pursuit of her dream to apply her transferrable mathematical skills within the space sector, Caoimhe was awarded the NASA Postdoctoral Program fellowship to model the formation and distribution of clouds in exoplanet atmospheres at NASA Ames Research Center, California. She continues to work at NASA Ames as a Research Scientist.

Motivated by the under-representation of women in maths, Caoimhe also co-founded Mathematigals, an educational outreach initiative with the aim to encourage young girls to pursue mathematics by making it fun and accessible while showcasing its many applications.

In today’s show we talk about:

  • Why GCSE maths is a terrible representation of what the field of mathematics is really like

  • How she ended up landing a job at NASA

  • What it’s like looking billions of years into the past

  • How the atmosphere of exoplanets can be observed using light

  • Her dreams of becoming an astronaut

  • Favourite space/maths related movies

  • And her greatest challenges/successes from the journey so far

Today's episode is part of our collaboration with NI Connections where we catch up with someone incredible from Northern Ireland doing interesting things overseas on the last Monday of every month.

To discover more amazing diaspora stories, check out their website niconnections.com where you can also sign up for their free, monthly newsletter.

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Thanks again to Caoimhe Rooney for taking the time to share her story with us.

See you next time.

— Matt

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Matthew ThompsonNIC