Astrophysicist Julie Clavo, a bachelor’s degree in ’09, has taken a fascinating career trajectory to her current work on the James Webb Telescope, which will reveal new secrets of the universe.
For someone who has spent most of his life looking up at the stars, Julie Clavo is very down to earth. Take a quick orbit around the social media universe at UVic Science grad and you’ll find that Claveau is not only a software scientist for the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) working on the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope, but also a mother of three, a blogger. YouTuber, an avid World of Warcraft gamer, violinist, dancer and former lifeguard. Her Instagram feed covers the seemingly distant galaxies of astronomy, family, gardening and baking.
“People often have these stereotypes that if you’re an astrophysicist, you’re such a person. But there are so many different aspects of a person that add to what they can offer the world or the team,” Clavo said on a call to Zoom from home. her in Montreal, while periodically interrupted by one of her school-age children. “I really want to bring it back to the world just so people can learn from what I know.
The trajectory of Claveau’s journey to work with the international space community on a $ 10 billion telescope that has been hailed as one of the most ambitious engineering initiatives ever attempted is far from straight. There are stops along the way in Australia, Kittimat and Victoria. Her professional experience includes everything from working in fast food restaurants to a decade of climbing the steps of the federal bureaucracy.
Clavo was fascinated by space as a child, lying on the lawn, day or night, staring at the sky. “I would lie there for hours trying to imagine how far infinity is. Like, “Oh, I’m looking here, but it goes on and on,” she says. “It was a very mind-boggling concept to wrap my young brain that I still can’t wrap my head today.”
Clavo grew up in Chikutimi, Quebec, lived in Australia for some time with his family (where he speaks English) and graduated from high school in Kittimat before enrolling at UVic as a science student. Eventually, she narrowed her focus to physics and astronomy.
“There are all my loves. He had enough challenging problem-solving to satisfy his thirst. I had enough creativity and freedom to be able to express myself. So that was really the turning point … When I discovered physics and astronomy [at UVic]it was so true to my heart, it was so ingrained in my soul, it just made me so inherently happy that I knew I had found my place. ”
Julio Navarro was a professor of astronomy at Clavo.
There are students who are very enterprising and always try to learn more. Calvo was also very intense. She came to my office and asked me questions, so she was very passionate about astronomy. I think that’s one of the things that sets her apart from an ordinary student – this passion for astronomy that you rarely see. ” – Julio Navarro, UVic cosmologist
While attending UVic, Claveau subsidized his training by working as a naval reservist at HMCS Malahat. Her father was a military man, and she was a high school cadet, so it was natural. After graduating from UVic in 2009, Clavo returned to Quebec, feeling aimless and unsure of what to do with his physics degree.
After several years working for Health Canada, Clavo realized he needed a change. She saw that the Canadian Space Agency had space to plan missions for the RADARSAT-2 Earth observation satellite. Her experience in physics, military operations, administration and project management has all been marked.
Once at CSA, Claveau made it clear that he was an astrophysicist and wanted to work in astronomy. Colleagues noted her passion and drive. The rumor spread and two years ago she became a program scientist in space astronomy, acting as a conduit between Canada and other countries, governments, space agencies and universities. However, its main focus is the mission of the James Webb Space Telescope. More than 25 years and $ 10 billion in the making, Webb Telescope is a collaboration between NASA, CSA and the European Space Agency (ESA), involving more than 1,000 people from 17 different countries.
Launch teams monitor the progress of the flight of the Ariane 5 rocket on Arianespace, carrying NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, Saturday, December 25, 2021. Credit: NASA / Bill Ingals
Webb is often described as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, which launched in 1990 and well beyond its 10-year lifespan, but is different, Clavo said. On the one hand, it is bigger. Webb’s main mirror is 6.5 meters in diameter compared to Hubble’s 2.4-meter range and consists of 18 gold-plated hexagonal sections resembling a honeycomb.
The home of the Web is also far away. While Hubble floats 547 kilometers above the Earth, the Web orbits the sun in line with the Earth, 1.5 million kilometers from what is called the second point of Lagrange or L2. Due to its proximity to the sun, Webb relies on a sunscreen the size of a tennis court, which, along with the mirrors, had to be folded into an origami model to fit his racket.
Unlike Hubble, Webb is designed to capture infrared light, allowing the telescope to see farther into the universe than ever before, allowing scientists to better understand how planets, stars and galaxies are born and evolve over time. Clavo compares the Web to a time machine.
“We will be able to see about 13.5 billion years ago because light takes time to travel,” says Clavo. “In the light of our sun, it takes about eight minutes to reach us … So when you look at the sun, you’re actually looking at eight minutes in the past.”
When we use the Webb to look at this distant light, we will look back to the beginning of the universe. If only we could see that this would have a huge impact on every possible field of astronomy. We may find things we never thought existed … This will completely revolutionize astronomy and our common understanding of the universe. “- Julie Clavo, UVic Class ’09
Canada’s contribution to Webb is also significant. The CSA provided the telescope’s fine-tuning sensor (FGS) and a near-infrared image and slotless spectrograph (NIRISS). FGS helps the Web target and focus on specific objects with an accuracy that Claveau compares to “seeing a baby’s hair from a mile away.” NIRISS contains a highly sensitive camera that will determine the atmospheric composition of exoplanets, which are planets light years beyond our solar system that orbit stars other than the sun.
“So far, we’ve been able to identify exoplanets … but we don’t know if they’re habitable or potentially there may be life there,” Clavo said. “With the Web, we will be able to know the composition of the atmospheres of these exoplanets, which means we will potentially discover new life or habitable planets.”
Although Webb was launched into orbit at Christmas 2021 from French Guiana with the ESA Ariane 5 rocket, it will take approximately five to six months before the first official images are produced and returned to Earth. Thanks to Canada’s contribution, Canadian scientists are guaranteed at least five percent of the time to observe Webb and will be among the first to take advantage of Webb’s powerful tools.
Clavo is also co-chair of the Women’s Advisory Committee at STEM at the Canadian Space Agency and is helping to organize a 2023 event with the United Nations Office on Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) to promote women’s empowerment in space.
Never stop looking up – I think that’s what Stephen Hawking said. As humans, we always look down at our feet or are focused on our daily existence. But the moment you start looking up, you have an out-of-body experience in which you feel so small and immediately wonder. Be curious, look up and dare to dream. ”“ Good
Add Comment