Kevin Ensor
My name is Kevin Ensor and I’m from Telluride, Colorado. I am doing an internship with the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics(CIERA) at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. I am staying in Wilmette, about 20 minutes away by bike. Max (Ordonez, also from Telluride, who is working with me) is jealous that I get to wake up an hour later than him.
Dearborn Observatory
My first week was great. I got to Northwestern just in time for the public announcement of the second (and possibly third) discovered gravitational wave. They were both observed by the detectors half a year ago, but extensive analysis is required to prove their statistical existence. So far I am very pleased with the work situation. I get to work in the basement of the Dearborn Observatory, which has enabled some very important discoveries. The schedule is very relaxed and most of the work is easy to do online. Thanks to this, I have had plenty of time to explore Wilmette and Evanston. Early in the week my host showed me around and we biked along Lake Michigan and visited the Bahai temple.
Bahá’í Temple
QUEST Exterior
Work started with a preliminary introduction to gravitational waves and how LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) finds them, but we have mainly learned and practiced python and bash, the latter of which is auxiliary to my highlight of the week: gaining access to Northwestern’s personal supercomputing cluster, QUEST. After a short, one-time registration process, I can now submit any program to QUEST and it will allocate the resources I request and execute it for me. Normally I would be charged 6 cents per node hour of use, but I am privy to power that has been prepaid for by CIERA. I haven’t seen QUEST in person so I only have a picture from CIERA’s website, but there is talk of a possible tour in the future.
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