Pauline Barmby: personal

Befitting a scientist, I've spent a lot of my life in school. Here's where:

• Mildmay-Carrick Public School
• Bakerview Elementary (now closed)
• Abbotsford Junior Secondary (now closed)
• Abbotsford Senior Secondary (not closed but renamed)
• University of British Columbia (still open and asking for my money)
• Harvard University (ditto)

After finally graduating from grade 23, I worked at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, part of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I was a member of the instrument team for IRAC, the InfraRed Array Camera on the Spitzer Space Telescope. That means I worked on getting the instrument ready before the telescope was launched into space, testing it after launch, and using it to do science. Now I'm at The University of Western Ontario (you could have guessed that from the webpage) where I get to keep doing astronomical research and teach too!

I've lived in a quite a few places:

• Guelph, ON
• Walkerton, ON
• Mildmay, ON
• Abbotsford, BC
• Vancouver, BC
• Victoria, BC
• Longueuil, QC
• Toronto, ON
• London, ON
• Cambridge, MA
• Somerville, MA
• Arlington, MA
• Brookline, MA

In my spare time I enjoy reading science fiction, listening to podcasts, curling, and knitting (the last is fun to do during long meetings; I don't recommend trying any of the other three). The reason I have time for none of these things is that, together with Charles McKenzie, I'm the parent of Duncan McKenzie.

And now for something completely ridiculous: one day I was sitting on an airplane, trying to make a list of all the airports I've ever been to. Turns out there are more than 60. Here's the list; you can find out which is which at www.airportcodes.aero:
AGP AKL AMS ATL BLI BLL BOS BRO BUF BWI CDG CIN CLE CLT CMH CPH DCA DEN DFW DTW ELP EWR FRA GLA GNV HON IAH ITO JFK KEF KOA LAS LAX LHR LSC MAD MDW MEL MIA MSP MSY MUN MZT OAK ORD ORL PHL PHX PVD RDU ROC SAN SAT SBP SCL SEA SFO SLC STL SYD TUS YEG YGK YHZ YOW YQR YUL YVR YWG YXE YXU YXX YYV YYZ

Last update: 2012 June 28