After four years of trying, I‘ve succeeded in obtaining a permanent academic position with the CNRS in France. I will be stationed at the LISA (Laboratoire Inter-universitaire des Systemes Atmospheriques) laboratory where I have been working as a postdoc for two years now. I essentially have the freedom to do basically whatever I want and … Continue reading The Cosmic Chemist‘s identity crisis
Author: Cosmic Chemist
Recent success with old SOLEIL projects
Back in 2019 when I was in my final year as a postdoc at the SOLEIL synchrotron, my research output started to explode a little bit and I wrote about some of my research successes then. I figured I‘d write kind of a follow up to that post because it seems that 2024 has been … Continue reading Recent success with old SOLEIL projects
2023 – A year in review, or… a life in review
This morning I woke up thinking I wanted to put up my academic year for review. In part because I would like to gear myself up for a year full of writing projects I ‘m very passionate about and in part because I want to make a concise summary for myself to update my portfolio … Continue reading 2023 – A year in review, or… a life in review
So, what is it for?
I have been reflecting quite a bit about my journey into the scientific discourse. (The word contretemps comes to mind.) I did my PhD in Iceland in chemistry, but more precisely the electronic spectroscopy of diatomics; investigating perturbations and state mixings where the so-called Born-Oppenheimer approximation breaks down. It’s complicated, has weird connotations, and to … Continue reading So, what is it for?
My Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (2019 – 2021(2)) – Part 2 of X, X = 3-5
The COVID pandemic sucked. There’s no getting around that. When you are an experimentalist with an experiment that is barely working and you are suddenly forced to work from home away from the laboratory, I took it as a challenge to learn a new skill. In this case it was coding with Python. When I … Continue reading My Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (2019 – 2021(2)) – Part 2 of X, X = 3-5
My Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (2019 – 2021(2)) – Part 1 of X, X = 2-5
Time has a way of getting away from us. This particular piece is one which I have been meaning to write for a while. Although I finished my Marie Curie fellowship officially in August 2021, I haven’t felt like I’ve been in a position to write this piece until now. Back in 2019 I won … Continue reading My Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (2019 – 2021(2)) – Part 1 of X, X = 2-5
The Accidental Scientist: The Role of Chance and Luck in Scientific Discovery
by Graeme Donald The world of science is indeed filled with many stories bustling with serendipity...as such. I was quite excited about reading this book and it makes for a quite interesting read. I use that phrase intentionally because it is written almost as the sort of mini stories told on the excellent QI, which … Continue reading The Accidental Scientist: The Role of Chance and Luck in Scientific Discovery
Ruminations of strange times
I‘m writing this because I need to write something. Not because there is something poignant I want to get across. But because I have inadvertently erected a barrier that I now want, no, need to break. Wait. I guess that is a pretty poignant thing. After starting as a Marie Curie fellow at the Leiden … Continue reading Ruminations of strange times
2020 – What the f***
This is the first thing I've written on this site for a little over a year. Well, that's not strictly true, I have been updating the reports on how my Marie Curie fellowship is going as well as my publication list. But that's not really important in the grand scheme of things. For the entire … Continue reading 2020 – What the f***
My Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath number
Sometimes there are so many things on your agenda that you need a little bit of a break and perspective. And what better way to do so than by calculating your Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath number?! Let me explain. The Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath number (or EBS number) is the summation of your individual Erdos number, Bacon number, and Sabbath number. … Continue reading My Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath number
The Cosmic Chemist 