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60 seconds with … Jesse Andries

4 March 2009

Jesse Andries

Name: Jesse Andries
Org. Unit: Centre for Stellar and Planetary Astrophysics
Title: Marie Curie Fellow
Dept: School of Mathematical Sciences

I arrived on 15 October last year and will be here for two years.

Prior to working at Monash, where were you located and what was your role?

I obtained my PhD in mathematics at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, at the Centre for Plasma Astrophysics, and have been a post-doctoral research fellow there for five years. I devote almost my entire time to scientific research in the area of solar physics. More specifically, I'm dealing with theoretical modelling of magnetohydrodynamic waves in the atmosphere of the sun.

What challenges are ahead in your current role?

The discipline of coronal seismology is very new and fairly primitive at this stage. Although theoretically, the presence of magnetohydrodynamic waves in the corona had long been anticipated, it was only by the clear and abundant detection of such oscillations by space missions in the late 1990s that it could become a serious field of research. The solar group at the Centre for Stellar and Planetary Astrophysics here at Monash on the other hand is involved in the use and development of rather sophisticated seismological techniques used to probe the internal structure of the subsurface layers of the Sun. The main challenge is to make useful connections betweens these two fields of study.

What is it about your job that holds your interest or is particularly satisfying?

For a mathematician it is always exciting to see that (part of) a complex reality can be captured in a simple mathematical model. When a combination of pure reasoning and observation allow us to assemble more information on reality than any of the two could do separately, this is extremely satisfying. This is exactly what seismology in particular and science in general is about.

Please explain the benefits of the fellowship.

The international outgoing Marie Curie fellowships involve funding for two years abroad and one year back in an EU institute. It therefore provides the fellow with the possibility to acquire new skills in a different environment, but with the perspective of returning to his original institute and field of research. Hence the focus is on gaining additional competencies from another (slightly different) field of research with the aim of applying this later on in your own field of research.

What is your favourite place in the world and why?

I like working/relaxing in my garden in Belgium, but that's just me being home-sick probably. Seriously, I prefer walking around in beautiful vast landscapes. Over summer, I've been to Wilsons Promontory and the Great Ocean Road.

What is the best piece of advice you have received?

Think harder!

What is something about yourself that most of your colleagues wouldn't know?

I used to have long hair when I started university.

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