Meet: Dave Cole

What I'm working on
I'm a graduate student at the University of Chicago, working under Dr. Al Harper. That means I'm working to get a Ph.D. and become a Dr. myself! On the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO) project, I've been involved in nearly every aspect of our part of the operation, from the design and testing of the detector system to the creation of the computer software with which we analyze our data. On these flights, I'll be spending most of my time making and displaying the accumulated images we get of the objects at which we look.

What sparked my interest
What I believe first interested me in astronomy was a partial solar eclipse that happened when I was four years old. My mother made a pinhole eclipse camera, and I was fascinated by the image of the moon partially covering the sun. Very quickly thereafter I started learning the names and shapes of the constellations, and staying up for meteor showers and lunar eclipses, even when I wasn't supposed to! When I was nine I secretly built myself an alarm clock to wake me up at 4 a.m. for a lunar eclipse. When my parents saw how interested I really was, they encouraged me by buying me a small telescope, through which I first saw the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter, as well as every Messier object (those 'M' things) one can see from the bright skies of the suburbs of Grand Rapids, MI! In high school I took all the math and science classes that were offered, and majored in physics and mathematics at Calvin College. The professors there told me I ought to go on to graduate school, so here I am.

For fun
In my spare time I enjoy riding my bicycle--in fact, I bike to work every day--and playing volleyball. I also do crossword puzzles and play board games, once in a while, I still get up before dawn to see Mercury or Venus, or catch a lunar eclipse or meteor shower in the middle of the night. And, at least when I'm in New Zealand, I like to jump off of bridges tied to the end of a bungi cord!