US Summer Trip, Part 3: Colorado
I've already posted the first part of the last step in my long US journey this year: after visiting my family in New Mexico for two weeks, we drove up to Colorado on August 24th and 25th, I was dropped off in Aspen, and from then until today I've been visiting the Aspen Center for Physics.
The Aspen Center is a bit of a miraculous thing, a physics institute located in one of the ritziest towns in Colorado that came into existence in the 1960s by virtue of some old physicists who bought up some (then-cheap) land to use as an academic retreat. It's now a small cluster of three buildings that holds winter conferences and themed summer workshops - the latter being (typically) month-long, lightly-scheduled programs that are mainly about getting a large group of like-minded scientists together in a nice location to talk and think deeply about a topic. I attended two of these in the past: the first, in 2014, was extremely informative and invaluable for networking beyond the limited circle of people I then knew. The second, in 2015, wasn't quite as formally useful - but still represented a key opportunity to get to know other people in a field I was moving into.
After a four-year hiatus in which none of the posted programs were particularly interesting to me, there was finally a relevant workshop this summer on gravitational wave astrophysics - so when applications were opened in January I energetically responded with an offer to come for a full three weeks at the end of the summer.
Admittedly I had some concerns after being accepted - for one, the scheduling was such that I would have to tack it onto another US trip that would stretch my time away from Liverpool to a rather extreme seven weeks; for another that same delay is going to create a stressful last-minute rush on my visa renewal; and then finally the workshop was being organized by a scientific competitor who I happen not to like very much. On several occasions I considered shortening my arrival by a week or more to get back to the UK at a more reasonable time... but in the end I never did (it was too expensive), and so I got the full three-week experience.
And I can't say I regret it, at least not yet. Despite some issues with my housing (there was a very noisy motor on the roof of the building) being able to spend a full three weeks in the mountains of Colorado surrounded with collaborators and other like-minded people was glorious. The weather was extremely cooperative: just a few days with thunderstorms and rain, but mostly warm days, cool nights, and clear skies. I remained quite busy (and a trio of important discoveries during the workshop only exacerbated that) but managed to force myself to get away for a series of hikes in the Colorado high country - one in a wilderness valley on the first weekend (I mentioned that last time), and then a hike to the summit of 14300' La Plata Peak this past Monday. Those were wonderful, wonderful days: I haven't been hiking like that in three years and it brought home how much I dearly love and miss the opportunity to be out in that sort of unspoiled scenery. (I wish I could have done more - but these hikes were so great I can't really complain.) Socially it was not as engaging as the last few meetings - there was almost no one there that I both knew well and got along with well. But at least that provided an opportunity to meet some of my competitors and others I didn't know so well and get to know them better. I became reasonably good friends with some theorists over the three-week period and also got to know some of my nominal competitors pretty well.
Anyway, all good things must come to an end and I'm now on my way back to the UK via long layovers in Chicago and Dublin. It'll be a bit of a rude awakening when I return - we're only one week from the start of the semester, two weeks from my career-defining ERC interview, and I also have only two weeks to get my visa re-approved to actually stay legally employed - plus who knows what else has built up in my absence. I guess I'll find out in a few hours. But at least in the meantime I have some good memories, some important discoveries, and some new potential collaborations to show for the long absence.
The Aspen Center is a bit of a miraculous thing, a physics institute located in one of the ritziest towns in Colorado that came into existence in the 1960s by virtue of some old physicists who bought up some (then-cheap) land to use as an academic retreat. It's now a small cluster of three buildings that holds winter conferences and themed summer workshops - the latter being (typically) month-long, lightly-scheduled programs that are mainly about getting a large group of like-minded scientists together in a nice location to talk and think deeply about a topic. I attended two of these in the past: the first, in 2014, was extremely informative and invaluable for networking beyond the limited circle of people I then knew. The second, in 2015, wasn't quite as formally useful - but still represented a key opportunity to get to know other people in a field I was moving into.
After a four-year hiatus in which none of the posted programs were particularly interesting to me, there was finally a relevant workshop this summer on gravitational wave astrophysics - so when applications were opened in January I energetically responded with an offer to come for a full three weeks at the end of the summer.
Admittedly I had some concerns after being accepted - for one, the scheduling was such that I would have to tack it onto another US trip that would stretch my time away from Liverpool to a rather extreme seven weeks; for another that same delay is going to create a stressful last-minute rush on my visa renewal; and then finally the workshop was being organized by a scientific competitor who I happen not to like very much. On several occasions I considered shortening my arrival by a week or more to get back to the UK at a more reasonable time... but in the end I never did (it was too expensive), and so I got the full three-week experience.
And I can't say I regret it, at least not yet. Despite some issues with my housing (there was a very noisy motor on the roof of the building) being able to spend a full three weeks in the mountains of Colorado surrounded with collaborators and other like-minded people was glorious. The weather was extremely cooperative: just a few days with thunderstorms and rain, but mostly warm days, cool nights, and clear skies. I remained quite busy (and a trio of important discoveries during the workshop only exacerbated that) but managed to force myself to get away for a series of hikes in the Colorado high country - one in a wilderness valley on the first weekend (I mentioned that last time), and then a hike to the summit of 14300' La Plata Peak this past Monday. Those were wonderful, wonderful days: I haven't been hiking like that in three years and it brought home how much I dearly love and miss the opportunity to be out in that sort of unspoiled scenery. (I wish I could have done more - but these hikes were so great I can't really complain.) Socially it was not as engaging as the last few meetings - there was almost no one there that I both knew well and got along with well. But at least that provided an opportunity to meet some of my competitors and others I didn't know so well and get to know them better. I became reasonably good friends with some theorists over the three-week period and also got to know some of my nominal competitors pretty well.
Anyway, all good things must come to an end and I'm now on my way back to the UK via long layovers in Chicago and Dublin. It'll be a bit of a rude awakening when I return - we're only one week from the start of the semester, two weeks from my career-defining ERC interview, and I also have only two weeks to get my visa re-approved to actually stay legally employed - plus who knows what else has built up in my absence. I guess I'll find out in a few hours. But at least in the meantime I have some good memories, some important discoveries, and some new potential collaborations to show for the long absence.