BH: Beck, all right, hi everyone. I am Beck. I’m one of the science communication interns, and with me today is Emerson Brown, one of our RESESS interns. So they are a rising senior at Northwestern University, double majoring in physics and Earth science, and they are interning at the Sandia National Lab in New Mexico, doing research on infrasound produced by meteors. So thanks for joining us. Emerson, so your path to geoscience is really similar to mine, and I’m really curious to hear your take on it. I also did a physics major, but I did a geology minor. I did not double major. I’m very impressed with you for doing that, and kind of similarly like I started with physics and then started feeling like the real world meaning was getting lost behind the math, and then kind of just aiming into a passion for geophysics, like sort of stumbling into it a little bit. So could you start by telling us how you ended up with this double major in Earth science and physics?

EB: Yeah. So I actually started, as you said, as a pure physics major, when I learned about the Standard Model of particles in high school, I kind of fell in love with it, and I thought it was beautiful how equations could display everything in the world and explain everything in the world. And so I got two and a half years through my physics degree, and I didn’t see a clear path for me, career wise or and I also started to kind of lose the meaning of the physics in all the math. It felt really abstract. And so I started leaning towards the science communication side, because I’ve always loved working with kids and doing education. My first job was teaching kids how to rock climb, and so I did that for a really long time. And so I was like, okay, science communication seems awesome. I get to talk about what I love, science and physics, but I also get to work with people, and I get to tell people what physics can do. And like, show them, like my physics teacher showed me that equations can explain everything, but at a more surface level, like and just get them involved in science. And so I started to do that, and I actually declared a dual degree in secondary education, and I was on track to become a high school physics teacher. And so that was really cool, but I didn’t think that being a teacher was the final path for me. I always still had this passion for science, and I felt like, as I got went into science communication and teaching, I was straying too far from the science itself, and I felt like I wasn’t involved in actual research. And so I was struggling with that, and then I took this class. It’s called science communication for geoscientists. And I took it thinking that it was for the public to teach them about Geoscience and how as scientists, are we communicating outwardly, but it was actually science communication inwardly. In science, it was all about papers and talks and how to write like our entire quarter was dedicated to writing a literature review, and I kind of fell in love with it because that class, our homework every day was to read different parts of papers, different papers from different areas of Geoscience and geophysics. And I learned a lot more than I’ll ever learn again about cave geophysics and biogeophysics and microbial bio and all the different areas. But I realized that there was a path for me in geophysics, and so I’ve kind of come back to the science side. And I’m still not going to go into a PhD. I still don’t think I can be that involved in the research, but I love it, and I went on a trip, and I did field work for the first time. And I was like, Okay, this is the science is here. But, yeah, it was weird. And I’m really happy with where I’ve ended up.

BH: That’s really cool. I think finding this balance between performing hard science and then the other end member of the spectrum of like, you know, communicating it and not getting to participate in science at all is like a really interesting gray area to try to navigate as a student, because you’re half you have to make these decisions, especially in an undergrad, like, you know, you’re trying to decide, oh, is it? Is it research, you know, is it teaching? Like, what is that? And it sounds like you stumbled into a really fortunate class that really helped you out.

EB: Yeah, I think geophysics needs to be published to everyone, because so many people major in biochem or physics, like the core sciences, and feel similarly to I did, like they don’t know where this research is going, and geophysics, or geology, and geoscience is kind of a perfect combination of all those things. It’s applying all of those core sciences, and everyone I found in it absolutely loves geoscience.

BH: I agree, dude, and like, when I was in high school, I didn’t even take a geology class. I didn’t take a geology class until college. And so it’s funny that it’s not treated the same way as like physics and bio and chem and those kind of things. Because, yeah, I also I had no idea geophysics was. Even an option. I was good at physics and I liked geology, and so I was, like, searching, like, how can I combine these skills? And it’s like, then you stumble upon this field that’s like, where has it been?

EB: It’s so cool. I’m happy we’re both here. Me too.

BH: So you’re still you’re starting your senior year of undergrad this fall. Yeah. So how is your double major going? Do you like it? Would you recommend it to other people? Or if, if people could take the knowledge you have now approaching college, what would you-

EB: I think it’s weird, because I actually it feels like I’m doing two majors completely separate. I finished my physics degree at the like midway through last year, and now I have crammed all of these classes to complete a double major in my last quarter of junior year and senior year, um, and I’m actually graduating a quarter early, so I really crammed a major into three quarters, um, and I think it was worth it, but I would not recommend doing it that way, because it’s felt like two very separate degrees. I think I really would have valued a school with a geophysics major class, because I don’t have that major isn’t an option to me at my school. I would take it if I could. But I think going into geoscience from the physics background is a really smart way to do it, because I feel like I have a really good understanding of the inner workings of the mechanics of what I’m working with. And I think for people that come into Wait, okay, I think I have a really good understanding of the mechanics that I’m working with, and it’s easier for me to understand the geology side of Geophysics than it is if I would have come from the Geo, Geology side trying to learn the physics. But I think it’s just worth it to have both of those majors and have such a wide variety of interests. And I think, you know, electricity, magnetism and quantum physics, like, they’re really cool, and they’re not for me, but I still value taking those core, pure physics classes/

BH: Anything that’s like, so teeny tiny I can’t see it, or so far away I can’t imagine. It is really hard for me to be interested in. That’s when physics major started to lose me a little bit. I was like, Okay, this is feeling not very like applicable to real life anymore.

EB: My first lab I was in, I was working on detecting dark matter, but, like, how do you do that? It’s so it’s invisible. And my best friend is still in that lab, and he does great, but I just, I can’t understand any of it.

BH: So on top of your double major, you’re also doing research, right? How do you balance that schedule? That seems kind of insane.

EB: Um, it’s not too bad. My research at school, I we have a building that’s being demolished right next to all of the super, super sensitive labs, and so it’s producing a lot of vibrations during the demolition, and now that that’s done the construction, and so the school partnered with my PI Suzan van der Lee to track the construction and the vibrations that it’s producing and to see How it’s possibly impacting some of that sensitive instrumentation. And so I actually was gonna do that this summer, but this opportunity came up instead. But so it’s been really interesting to learn about like, background seismic noise and learn a little bit about the construction. And it’s also really interesting because we’re using Raspberry Pi citizens and shake seismometers, which means that anyone can go online and look at our data. So obviously, we’re doing our own data analysis, but anyone in the Evanston, Illinois, Northwestern community who wants to see why the building’s shaking a lot one day can go and see that data reflected in our seismometers. But it’s been really cool to learn how to do that, and it hasn’t been too hard to balance with my schoolwork, I just treat it as another class.

BH: So if someone wanted to go find that Raspberry PI data, how would they do it? Do you have it? These hosted on a website?

EB: So RaspberryShake has like a data viewer, and you just have to find the station codes. There’s tons and tons across the United States and across the world. So our station codes are viewable somewhere online. It’s the construction and rebuilding of the Allen Center with shakes program or CRACS program, C, R, A, C, S, and so information about that is online, and you can find our station codes and go look at the data yourself.

BH: Cool, that’s super cool. Okay, so even outside of your school research, you’re also researching at Sandia Labs this summer. So could you tell us about what Infrasound is, and sort of what properties of the atmosphere that you’re able to glean from it?

EB: Yeah. So what I’m studying this summer is infrasound generated by meteors, and so a meteor is like a shooting. Star that we see in the sky. It is the light trail that is created when a meteoroid enters our atmosphere and starts heating up and ablating due to frictional heating. And so what happens is that that meteorite is traveling at hypersonic shock, hypersonic speeds, and it produces a sonic boom, like think of a plane that produces a sonic boom, but because it’s so high up in the atmosphere, the atmosphere absorbs a lot of the high frequencies and it attenuates down to infrasound, which is just any sound below 20 hertz. And so what’s really valuable the data we have is we have both visual and infrasonic detections of these meteors. And Infrasound is produced by a lot of different sources. We can actually see it in my data at school, because Lake Michigan produces infrasound by the waves on it. It’s like in the range of one to two hertz. They’re called microseisms. And so Infrasound is really cool, and it’s everywhere, but you can’t hear it because it’s below the frequency of human hearing.

BH: That’s so cool. You know, I actually, I deal with micro seisms from earthquake generated waves, and I never considered it like coming as like, an infrasound signal.

EB: Yeah, yeah, microseisms from the ocean are, like, viewable globally. And that’s what’s really unique about infrasound, is that, because it’s such low frequency, it doesn’t attenuate, or it does attenuate, but attenuates very, very little. And so you can use it globally. And so it’s actually used by the international monitoring system, but which is part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization to monitor nuclear events worldwide, and that’s how we work on nuclear deterrence and nuclear proliferation.

BH: Yeah, it seems like infrasound, at least to me, has kind of been like a growing field, and it feels like it’s getting a lot more traction and interest.

EB: Yeah, it’s super cool. I’m glad to know more about it.

BH: Did you know about it before your internship? Or was that like a thing you learned?

EB: I knew about it before my internship because of those Lake Michigan microseisms on all of our data from the seismometers around campus, we were noticing a weird two hertz peak. And so my research this summer was going to be analyzing that and figuring out that it is from Lake Michigan. And it’s weird because two hertz is a little bit higher in frequency than most microseisms from the ocean, which are in the range of half a hertz to one hertz.

BH: And that’s, you think, just because it’s a lake instead of the ocean, so it’s just a little higher in frequency?

EB: Lake, and it’s closer and there’s less energy.

BH: Cool. That’s super cool. Well, that’s so awesome. It sounds like your internship is going really well, and I hope you’re, you’re wrapping it up, and you’re gonna get to get to present some exciting stuff. A little more about you, outside of research, outside of school, out of that, what are some of your favorite hobbies and activities to do?

EB: I’ve really liked being in New Mexico because of its access to the outdoors. I grew up in California, and I love I hike, I ski, I climb. I mentioned I worked in a rock climbing gym for a really long time. I’m training for the Chicago Marathon, so that’s been really interesting in the Albuquerque heat. It’s 100 degrees out right now, but so I’ve been on camping trips every weekend, which has been lovely, and I don’t have access to that in Chicago. But the other thing I do is I’m really involved in the Northwestern University Marching Band. So I was the drum major last year, which is the person that kind of waves their hands and conducts everyone. And this year, I am the band staff manager, which means I am in charge of making sure the band functions. So I’m in charge of uniforms and instruments and music and communicating with our director and communicating with athletics. And so I’m super involved in that. I love it, and I play flute and tuba for that. So two instruments, yes, but at school, that’s a really, really big part of my life. And I love NUMB.

BH: I mean, it sounds like it, oh my gosh. You you contribute a lot to that lucky to have you.

EB: Yeah, I’m excited I go back in two weeks the what’s weird about that is that the football season does not care that Northwest- Northwestern is on the quarter system, so the first football game is three weeks before the first day of school.

BH: I have the exact same issue, actually, because at you, you Oh, so at University of Oregon, they also do the quarter system, and we start until the very last week of September. So we have three football games before it school even starts. It’s the weirdest thing.

EB: Oregon’s actually coming to Northwestern and you get to play in our dinky little stadium, because right now we have a stadium that only seats 12,000 people, so I’m sure your team’s gonna demolish us, and it’s gonna be great.

BH: I don’t even know, but I’m sure it’ll be fun. So do you get to play with at the band at the football games?

EB: Yeah, so we march at every home game, and we’ve gotten to go on a full few away trips for bowl games.

BH: That’s so cool. And. It’s so important to have, especially something musical, something separate from science, use a different part of your brain, get outside that. That’s awesome.

EB: Yeah, I really, I really appreciate it, and it’s interesting. Half of the band is engineers. We have very, very few people music or like music majors, in it.

BH: Wow. Is engineering a dominant major at Northwestern

EB: We have a specific school of engineering, but I think it’s only like a quarter of the school

BH: Engineers are just musical. All right, I guess. Well, cool. Well, thank you so much for this interview and for agreeing to it. This is super awesome, and thanks for watching you guys keep up with some of Emerson’s work through Sandia National Labs, and we’ll catch you later. Thank you. Bye.