Dr. Adeene Denton
@SpaceWhaleRider
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Planetary scientist, earth + space science historian, dancer/choreographer, part-time community radio DJ. Opinions mine. Founder @SGAC_EHR (they/she) 🏳️🌈
Tucson, AZ
Joined February 2011
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Pinned Tweet
When I get new followers on twitter:
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Finishing a PhD requires a lot more graphic design ability than advertised, folks...
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Back when I was applying to grad schools, a scientist I idolized told me I had no shot at becoming numerical modeler because of my relative lack of math + physics. Well, I’ve been waiting 6.5 years to say this: ✨ I got my PhD anyway ✨
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Geologists really take the longest hikes ever sometimes. "Wait wait look at this vein!!"
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Grad school has made me a great science communicator, mostly because when I call my mom crying she makes me explain exactly why I'm crying until she understands, which ends in us discussing the pros and cons of a methane clathrate layer at the base of Pluto's ice shell.
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Me, trying to explain grad school progress to my family:
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Hahahaha oh man, just off the top of my head:
- Pay us a living wage
- Cover conference costs UP FRONT
- Maternity+paternity leave
- Leadership and sensitivity training paid for and supported by the university CONSISTENTLY
- Mental healthcare
And finally:
✨Fire the harassers✨
PhD & master’s students report rates of depression & anxiety that are six times higher than those in the general public. (). What could institutions and workplaces do to better support those who are affected?
#WorldMentalHealthDay
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I get lots of great grad school advice like "fake it till you make it" and "be too stubborn to quit" but it would be super cool if we worked on building a community where coming in with your own suit of emotional armor isn't a prerequisite
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✨ I'm here, I'm queer, my depression is severe ✨
(But at least I have a cool shirt, right)
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Them: So how much time do you need to debug your code?
Me:
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Well, the defense is over. You can now call me Adeene Denton comma PhD!!
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My friend said "I have a date" and I first thought was "a defense date?!"
....And that’s when I realized I’ve been in grad school too long
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MAYBE I LEFT IT IN INTENTIONALLY
(I did not)
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Post-PhD friends - how long did it take you to bounce back after defending? It's been a few weeks now and I am still mentally drained....
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Very pleased to note that in my attempts to do some new data visualizations for my impact cratering simulations, I realized no one can stop me from using pride flag color schemes for depth contours:
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Just ran up a hill past a bunch of college bros playing beer pong and they all stopped to yell increasingly absurd encouragement.
“This hill has nothing on your own inner strength, dude!!”
Anyway I’d like to introduce some new members to my thesis committee
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In this scenario, the cost of publication is covered by an Article Processing Charge (APC) paid at the time of publication. The APC for Nature Neuroscience in 2022 is €9,500/US $11,390/£8,290.
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Happy
#BiInSci
day from your local Pluto seismologist! So, so thankful to the queer community I’ve found on twitter both within planetary science at large. You all inspire me to greatness, and if there’s a moon you’d like me to blow up (on the computer) just let me know 😊
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Shoutout to
@dasharez0ne
for my new favorite shirt! Don’t forget, kids - if it sucks, hit the bricks!!
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The LEAST you can do with your physics/astronomy/planetary science degrees and expertise is NOT design weapons. The least!!!!
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Me normally: Getting a PhD has destroyed my love of science, and it makes me so sad to function in publishable units and funding arguments
Me giving a science talk: I am going to convince every single one of you that it is beautiful how much we do not know about the universe
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Hi, please send good vibes, I am dealing with yet another major setback in my PhD that currently seems insurmountable… but at least I have my cool skeleton shirt
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Writing the methods section of my dissertation like:
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Twitter friends! Haven’t been as active on here recently because I’ve been working nonstop on prepping for my check ride, and am thrilled to say that after almost three years I’m finally a licensed pilot!
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Woke up from a dead sleep possessed by the desire to reproduce the extremely bisexual "Uranus is for lovers" that dream me was convinced existed. Alas, I have next to no graphic design ability so the result is NOT ideal, but consider:
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{\__/}
( • . •)
/ >🌑 yes, I'll tell you all about Pluto.
{\__/}
( • - •)
🌑< \ wait, you want to debate whether Pluto is a planet?
{\__/}
( • . •)
/ >🌟 yes, I will tell you all I know about stars.
{\__/}
( • - •)
🌟< \ wait, you want to know your horoscope?
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My dissertation is due in less than 48 hours. I somehow cannot get health insurance that kicks in before Dec 1. I am feeling extremely normal. I am vibrating at a frequency that only dogs can hear. I accidentally typed in Pluto's radius for my birth year.
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In all seriousness, thank you to all the folks on here who’ve been so supportive of me as I’ve continued on in science over the years. I wouldn’t be here without y’all and it means so, so much to me. Making it to 29 as a planetary scientist was never a sure thing. Y’all rock ❤️
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One addendum: I’ve always been convinced that anyone can be taught pretty much anything. Grad school did its best to convince me of the opposite, but I still really believe that the potential to do numerical modeling, lab work, etc. is in all of us, if we want to do it.
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Enceladus is a priority for both Flagship and New Frontiers-class missions in the new
#PlanetaryDecadal
Survey? Here we goooooooooooooooo
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No one ever talks about how in grad school, you’re not treated like a real person (professionally or otherwise) so none of your choices matter, then suddenly you’re out of grad school and everything matters again, there’s a future you have to plan for, and everything has WEIGHT.
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For this
#InternationalWomensDay
, I'd like to stop being told that toxic men in my field are somehow both too brilliant and too fragile to deal with, so I must instead bend the arc of my career around them 🙃
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I'm a simple person... I hear a NASA go/no go poll and I immediately get super emotional
#Mars2020
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His words really stuck with me. I’ve been horrified to prove him right. I don’t think I’ll ever sufficiently prove him wrong, because “making it” as a scientist is a moving target that I might never reach. But for now, at least, I can say that I did become a numerical modeler.
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Stop writing about space in a way that primarily defines other planetary bodies as property/resources to be exploited challenge
This tiny saturnian moon may be, pound for pound, the most valuable piece of real estate in the solar system.
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It finally happed - after four years, switching projects, and moving institutions, I've managed to advance to being a PhD candidate!
Me to my committee:
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There was a discussion of how to engage the public in a Uranus mission given the long development timescale and I am ready to lend my meme powers in support
#UranusFlagship2023
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Results of the mental health in planetary science survey (presented by David Trang) are not good! Particularly for early career scientists and marginalized folks! Findings suggest that many of us at
#LPSC2023
are presenting our research like this:
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I got the PhD. I’m going to stay in planetary science as long as I can, because doing this kind of research, communicating it, and teaching students to reframe their thinking through the lens of the universe, is my dream. Who knows how long that’ll be, but for now: let’s rock.
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Absolutely baffling to me that people can get their PhD, look back on grad school and go "that was fine." At best it was fine FOR YOU, and that's great but it doesn't absolve you of responsibility for changing, improving, and/or dismantling a system that hurts LOTS of people.
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"Adeene Denton, a doctoral student in planetary geology at Purdue University and lead author of the new work, says she’s “blown up Pluto countless times.”"
Reader, you know what? It's true. And I'll do it again.
Collision on one side of Pluto ripped up terrain on the other, study suggests
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My dissertation is due in less than 24 hours. I am speedrunning every doubt imaginable. I am experiencing the emotional equivalent of seeing shrimp colors. Was asked if I think Pluto's a planet and said "it's none of my business."
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This thread GOES PLACES, beyond the excellent discussion of normalization of deviance in the US space program. Highly, highly recommend.
If I was setting up curriculum at a university I'd make an entire semester-long class on The Challenger disaster, and make it required for any remotely STEM-oriented major.
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I’VE WAITED A LOT OF YEARS TO WEAR THIS FANCY HAT
(Yep, it’s time to graduate 😳)
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Googled "solutions to burnout that aren't rest" and even Google was like "uhhhhhhhh pretty sure the solution is rest" this is SO RUDE
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Potential grad students looking at schools/programs/PIs - my best advice for you is to really, seriously talk to grad students working there. How do they feel? How are they treated? Is there a level of trust between grads and their PI? Between grads and their department?
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Every year, I put one fun slide in my LPSC talk. Now that my
#LPSC2021
talk is submitted, here's the fun slides that didn't make the cut this year:
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And I really love numerical modeling. I’m not the best at it! It’s hard work, and it didn’t come easy to me. But I like the work. I like that I can build planets on my computer and blow them up. I like that I can pull meaning from endless streams of data.
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Me trying to understand my own uncommented code that I wrote 15 hours ago:
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Scientists love to tell me my undergrad degree in history is (at best) irrelevant or (at worst) a detraction but then I have to be the one telling people at a conference joking about proposing to nuke the Moon that the US already solicited proposals for that in the 1950s…
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Interested in a (relatively) low-cost mission concept targeting Enceladus? My amazing team built a concept called AXE as part of JPL's Planetary Science Summer School, and our paper (led by the wonderful
@chemseaton
) is out now!
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Folks, who on here has taken 6+ years to get the PhD? I promised myself if I can't get out in 6 years I'd quit the field, and after being told my timeline for graduation might be unrealistic I actually have to stare down the barrel of that choice.
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Dying my hair fun colors doesn’t FIX the code I’m debugging, but I’m very certain that it helps ✨
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Folks, I did it. I successfully proved that it is definitely possible to train for a long-distance mountain run while living in Indiana (though it's definitely not the ideal approach!) 😂 So, so happy to go into my happy place, run around a lot, and see some serious rocks!
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THEY GOT TOO MANY ROCKS FROM THE ASTEROID THIS IS THE BEST PROBLEM
JUST IN:
@OSIRISREx
collected a lot more of Asteroid Bennu’s surface than expected. So much so, that some is escaping from the sampler head. In order to protect what was collected, the mission is considering expediting stowing of the sample:
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Got an email about Grad Student Appreciation week complete with special university-designed computer and phone backgrounds and I just:
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It's important to me that y'all know this success came in my fourth year of my PhD, after THREE previous attempts, a complete project shift, a switch in advisors, and a change in institutions. Keep trying, keep retooling your writing, and keep learning from all the feedback.
Congratulations to
@PurdueEAPS
Graduate Students Laura Chaves and Adeene Denton on being awarded NASA FINESST grants. Of the 246 proposals for the planetary division, only 34 were selected.
#BoilerUp
@laurachaves09
@SpaceWhaleRider
Read more:
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My dissertation is due in less than 24 hours. I am speedrunning every doubt imaginable. I am experiencing the emotional equivalent of seeing shrimp colors. Was asked if I think Pluto's a planet and said "it's none of my business."
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Received the same well-meaning advice again this week to be more aggressive, get better at interrupting, and project confidence. I appreciate everyone who's saying this! But I would prefer you advise others to be kind, interrupt less, and own their uncertainty.
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Went for a run in the rain after feeling absolute despair at the state of my dissertation, and someone in a truck yelled "You can do it! Keep going!" as I was chugging along. Buddy, you're going in the dissertation acknowledgements. I needed that 😂
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It’s my one-year anniversary of moving to Tucson! I absolutely love living here, and being a postdoc (despite everything 😂). It really does get better after grad school! That’s a real thing that happens, and I’m so glad I’m in an awesome new place for a while.
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Hi again I don't know who needs to hear this but telling grad students that "if they're not sleeping less than 5 hours a night they don't love their projects enough" is perpetuating toxic work culture. We can do better! And we should, because everyone deserves work-life balance.
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Y'all... this will sound made up but I got into an actual fight with my therapist about Moon/Mars colonization and I’m gonna need a new one now. Amazing
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Ending my discussion section with "the only way to fully prove me wrong is to send a Pluto Orbiter" as a way to inspire the community
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Planetary scientists after the Discovery announcements yesterday:
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"[None] of our tech overlords’ efforts... are remotely revolutionary, or futuristic, or even that exciting. None of it seems likely to get us much closer to building a civilization in outer space, or curing the virus that has crippled this one."
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So if we're all still official microbloggers for
#LPSC2020
, stay tuned for Tuesday, March 17 where I livetweet the talk I would've given:
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Misspelled "seismic shaking" as "seismic sharking" and may have accidentally written the pitch for the next Sharknado movie
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Also I know that I said I'd be Uranus-posting on here in support of the flagship mission but this Neptune meme came to me in my dreams last night
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Back at Purdue for my PhD graduation and had to stop by the Pluto sign one last time. We know so much more about Pluto since this was made, and now I’ve contributed to that body of knowledge 😊
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Today's Ocean Worlds class may be cancelled, but the hot take figure I prepared will live on:
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GUESS WHAT TIME IT IS
"What do you plan to do if you successfully defend your PhD?" Simple. Immediately shotgun a Red Bull and perform a dramatic recitation of "All I Do is Win." Can't believe there's any uncertainty about this.
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I'm absolutely thrilled that the paper
@aRhoDynamics
and I wrote received this honor 😃 It was a wonderful collaboration and a fun writing process! For those who haven't read the paper (and also those who have) I've been celebrating by making a few memes about our results:
Congratulations to the 2 winners of the 2023 Pellas-Ryder Award:
@jupmira
for "Structural relationships in and around the Rheasilvia basin on Vesta” &
@SpaceWhaleRider
for “Tracking the evolution of an ocean within Mimas using the Herschel impact basin”
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Apropos of the massive JPL layoffs today, I must ask: how the fuck are we making planetary science a livable field for early career folks? How are we going to work towards ensuring there's a future for them, instead of just assuming things will just "work out" on "merit"?
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Great news: I’ve finally delved deep enough into python (i.e., not actually that deep) to achieve my long-held goal of producing xkcd-style graphs of my data and now I can’t stop doing it
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Prof in my dept: *opens lab door* oh Adeene, you're here early! How's the research going?
Me, having just slammed the mute button on the EDM remix of Take Me Home, Country Roads playing at top volume on my desktop at 8 am: ...pretty okay I guess
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Big shoutout to my mom for a) learning what a NASA early career award is, and b) immediately asking me why I don't have one 💀
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Got asked by a class of middle schoolers what my favorite planet was, and threw them a *massive* curveball when I said Neptune.
Them: Don't you work on Mars and Pluto??
Me: *frantically pulling up Voyager 2 images* I JUST THINK IT'S NEAT
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Just going to re-up this public service announcement for those who need to see it again:
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Giving research updates as a 5+ year grad student like:
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My mother: So prelims studying is going well?
Me: Yeah, just made my conclusions slide and everything
The slide:
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Them: Now that everything's remote, networking and reaching out to people should be so much easier, and you'll have a wider audience for your own work!
Me: Haha... yeah...
Me:
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Hi yeah, my general anxiety about life turned a regular research update into the most unhinged version of a scientific talk possible:
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When you're doing your first solo flight for your pilot's license, you can tell air traffic control it's your first solo and they'll be nice to you no questions asked... anyway hello NASA this is my first PI'd proposal 🥺
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My attempts to make the absolute worst slide for the department's annual research blitz continues this year:
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In an existential crisis about where I go from here in science (the postdoc special!), but I'm also so, so happy to have bounced back enough to dream of multiple possible futures. These days I have to remind myself that every aspect of my job scares me... but I will do it scared.
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