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I graduated from the University
of Copenhagen in Denmark. After spending some
years as a postdoc in Copenhagen, I took up a position
as staff astronomer with the European
Southern Observatory in Chile, where I spent
11 years. Subsequently, I worked at CASA
in Colorado as a Research Professor, and I have
recently joined the Institute
for Astronomy in Honolulu in order to pursue
studies of star and planet formation.
"One of my first astronomical experiences
as a small kid was to see the craters of the Moon
and the rings of Saturn through the telescope at
the public observatory on top of the Round
Tower in Copenhagen. After that I was never
in doubt that I had to become an astronomer. Conditions
in Copenhagen were already in those days not ideal
for looking at the night sky, but instead I spent
innumerable hours with my small telescope drawing
sunspots as they crossed the Sun. I took out a subscription
to Sky and Telescope, which I then painstakingly
read through with the help of a dictionary. One
day I read an article about small mysterious blobs
called Herbig-Haro objects which might be signposts
of stars in the making. I was completely captivated
by the possibility that we might actually be able
to see stars in the process of being born, and I
have spent most of my professional career trying
to learn about how stars are formed."
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