Chiara Mingarelli: How I Ended Up At The Center of the Universe

Dr. Chiara Mingarelli describes her personal journey—and roadblocks encountered—to the “center of the universe.”  Listen below or stream the official podcast!

Listen on iTunes!

Dr. Chiara Mingarelli is an Italo-Canadian gravitational-wave astrophysicist, currently based at Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she holds a Marie Curie Fellowship. Mingarelli received her Ph.D from the University of Birmingham, UK, in 2014, where she worked with Prof. Alberto Vecchio. Her core research is focused on using Pulsar Timing Arrays to detect low-frequency gravitational waves, with forays into electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational-wave events, such as fast radio bursts. Mingarelli’s thesis was published in the Springer Thesis Series (2015), and is the recipient of numerous grants from the Royal Astronomical Society and the UK Institute of Physics for both research and outreach. She recently appeared on Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, “Talk Nerdy” with Cara Santa Maria, and maintains a strong social media presence where she advocates for “Science, Coffee, and Girl Power”.

Our favorite Tweets from the Springer Storytellers show in Seattle!

We had a terrific inaugural event in Seattle in front of a sold-out and enthusiastic crowd, with great speakers and entertaining stories about science (look for the podcasts soon!). Held alongside the American Astronomical Society’s 225th Meeting, astronomers kicked off the first Springer Storytellers show with a big bang (pun intended), sharing personal stories about the challenges they have faced in their career to find their direction, the thrill of scientific discovery and quite literally, falling off a mountain.

Rather than wax poetic about how thrilled we were to bring this storytelling event to Seattle, we thought we would let the tweets “tell the story” instead.

Our Audience

We hosted a mix of astronomers, scientists, science enthusiasts and the general public, but the storytelling format made it relevant and interesting to all.

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The Stories

It’s challenging to tell a whole story in 140 characters, but there were some great nuggets perfect for sharing.

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The Storytellers

It’s no easy feat to get up in front of a large crowd with no notes, no powerpoint slides and tell a story that grips the audience. But our Storytellers found it a rewarding experience…one that kept them “buzzing” for long after the show was over.

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And finally… 

We are glad that our giveaways – earbuds with wire management – were appreciated!

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Be sure to subscribe to updates on future shows, and to learn about our most recent posts; we’ll be fully up and running with great stories to share later this spring!