Mike Wolff
I am Mike Wolff, a research scientist at the Space
Science Institute (SSI). I joined SSI during the
summer of 1995, at which time I moved to Augusta,
Georgia. I have been the "test case" for
a new type of employee at SSI, the "remote"
employee. Such a status allows me to live with my
wife Elizabeth (who is a physician at the Walton
Rehabilitation Hospital) and my two children, Carolyn
and Matthew. I do my research out of a "home
office" where I have a small computer network
and a dedicated ISDN internet connection.
I received my Bachelors in Math and Physics from
Marquette University in 1988. I also minored in
French, but haven't yet managed to arrange a sabbatical
in the South of France. My Ph.D. in Astronomy was
awarded in 1993 by the University of Wisconsin (Madison).
After spending a year as a post-doctoral researcher
with Art Code, a Co-Investigator on the Wide Field/Planetary
Camera team, I moved to the University of Colorado
to work with Geoff Clayton at CASA. After a most
festive year in Boulder (and the end of my wife's
fellowship at Children's Hospital in Denver), I
accompanied my family to sunny Augusta, where I
now have the distinction of being the only professional
astronomer (that and a dollar gets me a cup of coffee).
My research areas include both the study of interstellar
dust and the atmosphere/current climate of Mars.
I primarily work with spacecraft data (Hubble Space
Telescope and the Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo Polarimeter
Experiment), though I do still dabble in the area
of ground-based linear spectropolarimetry measurements
(which originated with many, many nights spent at
a telescope during graduate school). I would like
to say that I have many interesting hobbies, but
very few of them are currently practiced. I am a
lapsed private pilot, as well as a certified SCUBA
diver. I do enjoy running (though my enthusiasm
does wane slightly during the summers of Augusta,
where both the temperature and humidity are routinely
above ninety). I have recently taken up golf, partly
because I was tired of people's reactions when I
told them that I didn't play (Augusta is the home
of the "Masters' Golf Tournament").
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