Women of Impact: Interview with Erika Hamden

Erika Hamden, associate professor of astronomy, explores the faraway stars, planets, and galaxies with advanced ultraviolet telescopes. Hamden, who is especially averse to boredom, also teaches peers how to write winning grant proposals and recently took over as director of the Arizona Space Institute.

In the "Conversations with Women of Impact" interview series, Women of Impact award winners provide perspectives on the future of their fields, share what inspires them, and discuss what they've been up to over the last year.

Tell us about your research and your new role as director of the Arizona Space Institute.

My research covers three different areas in astrophysics. I'm interested in how galaxies, stars, and planets form. I like galaxies, but I'm curious more about how they get to be the way that they are than the thing itself. I care about what came before it.

Because of that interest of mine, a lot of my work is not looking at actual stars or really bright things, but, rather, looking at faint forms made up of hydrogen. I’m looking at things before they become a star or a planet or a galaxy, so there’s not a lot of light.

In order to do that, I work on technology to make telescopes better for seeing really faint things. I have a long history of ultraviolet detection development, and some other UV-related technologies. I then take that technology and put it in telescopes that I help build. Building telescopes is really fun. I developed detectors and ran operations for a balloon-borne telescope called FIREBall-2, which we launched in 2018 and which I gave a TED Talk about. We are planning to relaunch it in September. My former post-doc, and now, faculty colleague, Carlos Vargas is the principal investigator, or PI, of a telescope mission called ASPERA. I’m the deputy PI. We just recently passed our critical design review, so we’re now ordering parts and beginning assembly, with a launch planned in 2025. The ASPERA telescope is orbital, meaning it’ll go up into space and stay there, whereas the FIREBall-2 telescope only goes up for one night at a time. I’m also involved in a telescope project with Walter Harris who is a professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the chief scientist of the Arizona Space Institute. I am also working on a couple of proposals for NASA Explorer missions.

Of course, part of that process of building a telescope—which can cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars—is getting money, mostly from NASA, so I spend lots of time writing grant proposals. A lot of people hate that kind of writing, but I really love it; it feels creative and full of possibility.

The fact that I really like the proposal process is one reason I was interested in becoming director of the Arizona Space Institute (UASI), of which I took over in June. One of the things we’re doing is helping researchers develop their own proposals across all space sciences—not just astrophysics, but planetary science, heliophysics, Earth science, and even work that involves human exploration. In Arizona, we have a long history of excellence in space science, so I want to keep that going and help people develop the best possible proposals.

What kind of impact are you trying to have in your field over the course of your career?

A gigantic one, I think. I want to be able to look back on my career and feel like we know so much more than we did because of my work. That’s partly what motivates my interest in building and operating telescopes because people can discover new, cool things about the universe with telescopes. I also want to make it easier for researchers write proposals that get selected. That process can be opaque and complicated, but the rewards are so huge. I want to help people who aren’t the usual suspects to win grant funding and run missions, rather than the same people doing it over and over again, which is kind of the situation now. I have a workshop called PI Launchpad that I organized with NASA to teach people how to be principal investigators for the first time in their careers. I’m hoping through my career I can make the proposal process feel transparent and accessible to whoever wants to do it, and that, as a result, we have better missions and better ideas getting funded.

In your view, what are some things people and institutions can do to retain and advance women in their work?

The main thing is money—that is, making sure that women are paid equally and highly. It’s critical, because given the way our society is structured, money gives you power. I frequently insist on being the highest paid person in my area. Whenever I can determine what others are being paid, I advocate for myself to be at the top of that range, and I’m not ashamed because I’m really good at what I do so I should be compensated appropriately.

Giving people enough money makes everything else easier, too. People who are paid well are less stressed out, and they have the resources to make their home life whatever they want it to be, so they do better work.

The other thing institutions can do is ensure we have a reasonable workload. This is true not just for women, but for everybody. In an environment with shrinking resources, you can’t ask people to do more and more stuff outside of their actual interest and then wonder why they aren’t as productive as they used to be. It’s just important to be aware of why you hired somebody, what you’re asking them to do, and whether or not it aligns with their skills and interests.

Can you talk about a mentor who made a significant impact on your career?

I’ve had some great mentors. My PhD advisor at Columbia University, David Schiminovich, was fantastic. And since I graduated, he’s been really good about putting my name in for things and pushing others to include me. Another is a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a federally funded research and development center managed for NASA by Caltech. Her name is Shouleh Nikzad. I’ve known her since 2008, and I really look up to her. She helps me put proposals together and she has helped promote me in the field of technology and astrophysics.

I think of both David and Shouleh as friends. They believe in me 100%, and I think that’s really important when you’re starting out—to be surrounded by people that build you up and make you feel good about yourself.

How do you foresee your field changing over the next 10-20 years?

In the field of astrophysics, there’s some really big things coming. There’s going to be a revolution in what’s called time-domain astronomy. Time-domain is where you return to the same objects to observe them over and over, and you see how they change over time. The sky is always changing: things are exploding, stars are forming, stars are dying, galaxies crash together. We’re only now getting a real sense of all the stuff that’s always happening.

There’s a telescope that's been built in the southern hemisphere called the Vera C. Rubin Observatory that will help with that by doing a survey of the sky every night. It will generate about 20 terabytes of data every 24 hours, which would be more than three years’ worth of watching Netflix nonstop to use that amount of data. That survey is going to help us do more than just observe the sky in a static way, but to see all of the constant churn. I think it's going to be really exciting.

Gravitational wave astronomy, similarly, is already changing things. It’s been less than a decade since the first detection, and it will continue to be really helpful for looking at supermassive black hole mergers.

Machine learning, as it gets better, is going to transform these fields, too.

What’s on your desk right now?

On my desk at the Steward Observatory, I have a lab notebook where I keep my to-do list and random notes. I'm a paper person, so if I don't write it down, I don't necessarily remember it. This morning I’m at the Applied Research Building. My desk here has my hat and parasol for when I walk back to Steward, because the sun is my enemy.

What are you reading and/or listening to lately?

I love to read a bunch of different things, but I prefer to read novels because I like to be in a different world. Right now, I’m reading The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. It’s such a weird world that's described compared to my own, so it’s funny and interesting.

I usually listen to the local classical music station on the radio in the mornings. It’s called Classical 90.5, but it’s through Arizona Public Media. I put that on in the morning when I'm making breakfast and it’s pleasant. I’ve been listening to the Barbie soundtrack on Spotify when I drive. I also just saw Oppenheimer at The Loft this weekend, so I’ve been listening to that soundtrack too. It’s stressful, so I can’t put it on for long.

What have you been up to since receiving the award last year?

I’m still new to the role of director of UASI, so that's been keeping me busy the last couple of months. It’s been fun and I'm learning a lot. I really appreciate it actually because I hate being bored. I also was notified at the end of April that I got tenure, which takes effect in mid-August. I’ve been busy with FIREBall-2, realigning some optics in the lab before relaunch in the fall, and working on getting ASPERA through the review process. Some of my students have graduated and are moving on to new, exciting things. So, yeah. Like a million things.