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Hilding Neilson, Astronomer

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The soul-sucking day-to-day of being Indigenous in Academic STEM

Posted on May 12, 2021May 12, 2021 by admin

I am pretty sure that I am burnt out. I am not a medical doctor or a therapist or anything, but I am tired and unmotivated and am simply languishing. According to an article in Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2015/05/13/the-6-causes-of-professional-burnout-and-how-to-avoid-them/?sh=373c4a211dde by John Rampton, the causes include a lack of control, insufficient reward, lack of community, an absence of…

Tales of the North Star: An origin story and time-domain astrophysics

Posted on February 7, 2021February 7, 2021 by admin

The North Star is one of the most important stars in the northern sky to almost all peoples, Indigenous and non-Indigenous. In so-called Canada and the United States, many Indigenous peoples told stories about the North Star and their relationship with that star. One such story comes from the Paiute peoples of the so-called western…

Astronomy through two lenses: Thinking about Eurocentric and Indigenous methodologies

Posted on January 28, 2021January 28, 2021 by admin

Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island and elsewhere have lived on the land long before the scientific revolution and the so-called enlightenment. As part of this land, the peoples developed intimate knowledge of the environment and natural world, including knowledges of the sky above. That understanding was arguably built by centuries of detailed observations that have…

Thoughts about how we name things in the sky

Posted on January 4, 2021January 4, 2021 by admin

Humans watch the sky all of the time and look for the reassuring planets and stars that we identify with. In the north, those stars might include Polaris the North Star, or Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion. We learn about these stars and the constellations in the sky as children in school even if…

Between Us and the Stars

Posted on February 24, 2019February 24, 2019 by admin

The night sky is a fantastic sight, stars moving across the sky, twinkling and shining. It feels as if we are related to the stars, they are like watchful grandparents. The stars have been there for millennia, watched by our ancestors and the stars watching back. Our ancestors wrote stories in the stars even before…

Tales of the North Star

Posted on January 24, 2019January 24, 2019 by admin

The North Star intrigues us and guides us. It is a beacon in the night sky for peoples and cultures around the world. Even though the North Star, also called Polaris, is but one star in a sky of millions and billions of other stars Polaris is special. Polaris is a guide star for cosmology,…

What is science?? Not just the scientific method…

Posted on October 14, 2017February 24, 2019 by admin

This is a tough question even through it seems so simple. In our daily lives, we see science all around, in cars, medicine, construction, nature. We view it with hope for fighting diseases, climate change, solve the riddles of the Universe and basically improve the lives of people everywhere. At least, that is what we…

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