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I would have never in graduate school ever imagined I could have ended up in what I can
very much call my dream job. As the visualization scientist for the Spitzer project my domain
if you will is all of the visual side of our science communication. That ranges from taking
the data that comes from the Spitzer spacecraft and rendering that into the color imagery
that we release for the public, but also is taking science concepts that aren't present
in our imagery directly and coming up with designs that will help us visually communicate
the science that comes out of the project. In a sense I think it was always my passion
to be an astronomer but it really took me until I got to grad school that I had the
realization that you know maybe you should just go and go for your dream and do the thing
that really you feel the passion for and let that carry you forward and sort the details
out later when you get there. For me that worked really, really well. I suppose in a
lot of ways I had to go through the same realization about my own orientation as well you know
it just came a little later in life that I got to the point where I was ready to face
that and deal with it. I think any kind of progressive society that
is really moving to embrace the civil liberties of its entire population it has to reach each
of these mile posts you know in turn and so that NASA is now making that part of its policy
I think has made me very proud to be a part of it.