John W. Weiss
The Cheshire Cat
CICLOPS/Space Sciences Institute
weissj@moonlets.org
Who am I? (in 200 words or less)
I am now a post-doc working at CICLOPS doing ring science for the Cassini mission with Carolyn Porco. It's great fun and I'm having the time of my life. I received my Ph.D. in May of 2005 from CU Boulder in Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences where my advisor was Glen Stewart. My thesis was mainly about the edges of rings where there are no moons to constrain the particles. Fun stuff, but pretty computationally intensive. I went to college at Carleton College (class of 1999). At Carleton, I was a Physics/Astro and Math double major, which kept me busy-but-quite-happy.
I am originally from Rochester, MN. My dad is a journalist (reporter/photographer) who specializes in outdoors and environmental stuff. My mom is an Ed. Asst. at an elementary school, where she applies the harsh lessons about kids that my sibs and I taught her. If she could handle us, she can handle anything. My siblings, Angela and Charlie (CJ) are 3 and 6 years younger than I am, respectively. Both are science oriented as well, so I suspect that there was some contamination in our water supply. Angela is the biologist; she graduated from St. Olaf, the college across the Cannon River from my alma mater. Silly goose that she is... She's now a high school science teacher in Northern Minnesota. CJ majored in chemistry at Carleton. He's currently in grad school in Chicago. He hasn't blown himself up yet, but it isn't for want of trying.
I've also done bits of teaching. I did a stint as a summer instructor at CU, teaching ASTR 1110. I was also my department's Lead Graduate Teacher. I spend time training TAs and helping them become better teachers. (I was also somehow the department web-master. Which was a real learning experience. It was also enormously fun, but I love a challenge.) A while ago, I wrote an article that was published in the Griffiths Observatory Observer, which was lots of fun, too. And finally, I'm a Mad Scientist.
Hobbies-wise (in my oh-so-copious free time) I mainly have my nose in books. It's kind of frightening to realize that I have seven bookshelves all to myself. I'm not quite sure where I found room, but the gravity of the books might have caused some spacetime warpage, I suppose. I also have seven guinea pigs, Adrastea, Metis, Pallas, Mneme, Puck, Galatea, and Caliban. Head to the pictures pages to see more of them. (No, really. They're very cute.) And I co-founded the Science-Fiction and Fantasy Underground here at CU. Otherwise, I mostly cross-stitch (you can also see these under pictures at left) and pretend like I'm actually doing work.
If you want to learn more about me, either you are bored and should do something constructive or should e-mail me.
That was more than 200 words. Limits be damned. (Can I say "damned" on this browser?).
A Few of My Favorite Links:
Friends
- Kisha's Page Kisha's my ex-gf and is pretty much a big (well, older) sister for me, now.
- Licia, my officemate.
- James Roberts, my partner in crime and collegue in APS.
College and University Pages
Pages from my alma mater and my current institutions.
- CICLOPS The Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS. Lots of nifty pictures, movies, and even a golf game, all made by my co-workers.
- Space Science Institute The outfit that pays my salary (CICLOPS is part of SSI). They also work on museum exhibits that you might see sometime.
- Carleton College My alma mater. I love this place, so if you are a prospective student (especially one with a math/science interest), e-mail me and I'll be happy to answer questions!
- Carleton Physics/Astronomy Dept. Where I was a major. Loved it here. In case you're curious, they have some neat-o pictures of us being generally odd sorts of people all around...
- Goodsell Observatory I could often be found here, either observing or just doing astro stuff.
- The Math/CS Dept. Where I was also a major. 'Nother great dept. As for the page, lots of good stuff here. Fun profs with cool pages.
- Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at CU My old department.
- Sommers-Bausch Observatory Another place I can be spotted, from time to time. Keith Gleason runs a nice site, check it out.
John Weiss