Hi, my name is Tristan King. I am a fourth year student on the “MPhys Astrophysics With Year Abroad” program. The last two words of my degree title encode the most exciting year of my studies, which I will summarise in this blog post.
I have spent the last eight months in Boston, Massachusetts, conducting research at one of the world’s leading astrophysics institutions: “Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian” (CfA). With one more month of research remaining, now feels like the perfect time to reflect on and share some of the most exciting experiences that I have had along the way.
I arrived in the US in late August and had a full week to explore Boston, roast in the (surprising) heat and, of course, recover from the travel. Seeing the Harvard campus for the first time was a stand out moment, despite the imposter syndrome that I felt! My housemates and I also got to know the various attractions of Boston in this first week, from MIT and the “Good Will Hunting bench”, to the downtown district and the Boston Cop Slide! It was surprising how much ground we could cover in a short amount of time. Boston is very easy to walk around and differs from a “typical” American city, feeling more European than many of the grid-type layouts of New York.
Just a few weeks after work began, one of our friends visited from Southampton and joined a few of us on a trip to the Big Apple. This is a four hour coach or train from Boston and can therefore be very easily done on a weekend. In fact, in just two days, we managed to see almost all of the landmarks that we wanted to. Another benefit was that, as Smithsonian ID holders, the museums were free entry. This made the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History accessible for ourselves and a guest.
We have also made plenty of new friends along the way at the CfA. Some standout moments are the “Friendsgiving” event in November. This was for all of those who were away from home for Thanksgiving. Although we don’t typically celebrate this in the UK, it was great to experience a classic American holiday. In the coming weeks, we will also be visiting the Acadia National Park, Maine, with a large group of our fellow students at the CfA.
My work at the CfA sees me studying the Milky Way’s most massive “cluster” of stars: Westerlund 1. Specifically, I am studying the “winds” that come off of the stars and shed matter into the cluster. I spend much of my time measuring observable properties of the stars and simulating them with a model that I have designed from scratch. My project has allowed me to work personally with several CfA scientists and also with an international collaboration, called the EWOCS (Extended Westerlund 1&2 Open Cluster Survey). With support from such scientific expertise, I have had a true taste of the most exciting aspects of working as a researcher. For example, this January, I attended the 247th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Phoenix, Arizona. During the meeting, I presented my work thus far in the form of a poster, gaining an “Honorable Mention” from the AAS in their “Chambliss Student Award” (nearly 500 entries).
The experiences do not stop there; my supervisors now plan to send me to a second conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, this summer for the European Astronomical Society meeting. With a new, updated set of results, I am excited to share this work again and meet some of my collaborators in person! After this, I will write my work into a published paper. The experiences and travel opportunities that have come about this year have been a big part of what has made it so special. I get to see the world and conduct fascinating work with world-leading researchers!
I would highly recommend  the experience of studying abroad to anyone. Although at first it can be daunting, you gain such valuable experience, see new places and afterwards, the world feels like quite a small place!Â