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Dr. Donald Garnett is an Assistant Astronomer at
Steward Observatory
at the University of Arizona. His educational
background includes a B.S. from the University
of Michigan in 1982, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in
Astronomy from the University
of Texas at Austin in 1986 and 1989. As a postdoc,
he received several fellowships that gave him research
experience at Space
Telescope Science Institute and the University
of Minnesota. He has been at Steward
Observatory since 1998. When not doing science,
he enjoys hiking, reading, photography and working
in the garden.
"I was first bitten by the astronomy bug when
I was nine years old, when an uncle gave me a book
on astronomy as a Christmas gift. Poring over the
beautiful photographs, I was struck by a sense of
mystery and wondered what lay hidden in those depths
of space. (A healthy interest in science fiction
only made this worse!) The first thing I did after
getting my first job was to buy a telescope with
which tried my best to study the skies through thebright
skyglow of Detroit, Michigan. I've always had an
interest in the sciences, and almost decided to
major in chemistry in college, but the astronomy
infection was too much! My main scientific interests
are in
understanding the origin of the chemical elements
and how they are distributed within and among galaxies.
Amazingly, almost all of the elements that make
up our bodies were made inside stars, so if we study
how the abundance of these elements changes with
time, we may have a better understanding of how
(and possibly where) life arose in the Universe.
An added bonus is that we learn something about
the history of star formation and the evolution
of galaxies over time from the distribution of elements
within the stars and gas. I also enjoy studying
the beautiful gaseous nebulae where young stars
are found, such as the famous Eagle Nebula "pillars"
imaged by HST a few years ago,and the very nice
N44C shown here. I think it's impossible to become
bored with looking at such intricate structures
- they each have their own 'personality', so to
speak!" |
