Dr. Lindsay Goodwin
Assistant Professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA
Postdoc at Boston University, USA
PhD from University of Saskatchewan, Canada
Master’s Degree from University of Saskatchewan, Canada
Undergraduate degree from University of Calgary, Canada
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsay-v-goodwin/
From biology to astrophysics
I was better in physics than any of the other sciences in high school, but I didn’t pick physics as my undergraduate major right away. I initially chose biology because I didn’t think I could do physics. It was on such a pedestal to me, so I didn’t think it was possible for me to be a physicist. But after a semester of biology that made me really unhappy, and because I still had money saved for school, I decided to go for the hardest thing I could think of … ASTROPHYSICS! I later switched into Physics, but all-in-all I truly had no plans besides doing the stuff that I liked. Physics was something that I was good at, and I decided to put all my efforts and funds into it, and I am still here!
Not a fluke
After I finished my undergraduate program, I was applying for jobs in Calgary, but I didn’t like the jobs I was applying for. I did a little bit of physics research as part of my undergraduate degree requirements, and I really enjoyed that, but I STILL never thought I could do physics. I always thought that passing my classes was just a fluke. Because I was again in a situation where I was unhappy, I applied for grad school and I got lucky. I went to work with Jean-Pierre St.-Maurice at the University of Saskatchewan, although I was certain I was going to fail my classes and be kicked out.
It has been a long string of thinking that I was not capable of doing something and then proving myself wrong
When I got to grad school, I became, in general, better at physics and it reinforced that I actually could do it. Which was weird. I always had doubts that I could, and I still have doubts. I am still waiting for one of my colleagues at a conference to tell everyone that “Lindsay doesn’t know what she is doing” and “she is just lying to everyone, she is really clueless”. I have nightmares that someone would find out that I am an imposter here. My career has been a long string of thinking that I was not capable of doing something and then proving myself wrong, even now, when I am a professor.
From work to laptop time
As a professor I feel very busy, but I can’t really tell you with what. A lot of my day is being spent answering emails and organizing, prepping for lecture, working on projects with and without students, trying to make my team better, and so on. I really love my work, but I feel that I am getting better with taking up my own space with my own personal life now, which I feel good about. I am still working way more than I should, but I try not to work during the weekend. My partner is pretty good about “laptop time”, where we both would sit and work on our independent projects after work hours.
Fake it until you make it
For the future female scientist, I want to tell that you really CAN fake it until you make it! It is not just a catchy rhyme, and I am evidence of that. I also want to emphasize that there is a lot of space in physics, and there are a lot of different avenues to be involved if you are interested. You don’t necessarily need to be a professor either, there is a lot of space in our community for you to define yourself.
Our place in the Universe
A poetic version of what I am working on is, “I study our place in the Universe”. I study how the Sun impacts our home. When there are solar flares and solar storms, I investigate how it couples down and affects our lives. To paraphrase from Carl Sagan, I study the “shore of the cosmic ocean”.
A lot of unknowns
I use incoherent scatter radars to look at plasma density irregularities in the upper atmosphere and the plasma physics behind it. I also study magnetospheric and ionospheric coupling.
There is a lot of basic plasma physics that we still don’t understand, although this field has been around for nearly a century. For example, we still do not know the O+ and O collision cross-section, which is the most important collision cross-section in the F-region ionosphere. We only have guesses. We also still have a lot of unknowns in the process of how solar energy reaches down to the Earth through the magnetosphere and moves things around in the ionosphere.
Victoriya Forsythe
Featured in: news.usask.ca