On Science and Enthusiasm in Strange Lands NASA's Prof. Justin Wilkinson speaks about
the homes we seek and the home we share by Mick Swiney  Enthusiasm was the word of the day in the Student Pavilion on Wednesday, 25 September as Professor Justin Wilkinson of NASA spoke to a crowd of students about the prospect of careers in North America for foreign nationals; an increasingly pressing topic, as over 65% of SEG's membership resides outside the United States, despite a prevailing concentration of industry jobs in North America, particularly Houston. "We pay taxes, we are liable to join the armed forces, even if we are not citizens," Professor Wilkinson notes about foreigners working in the United States, prior to recalling his own experience of immigrating, working for a branch of the US government, prior to becoming a US citizen. "I'm African American in a strange way," Professor Wilkinson describes his South African heritage. Growing up in a continent that boasts the world's most awe-inspiring geological phenomena led him from working in diamond mines to developing a passionate enthusiasm for geomorphology. The transformative power of this enthusiasm would define the course of his groundbreaking academic career, enabling him "to see stuff no one else had seen" despite his being a "bad student". (Or so he insists, though the evidence of his numerous publications, media appearances, scholarships, and awards, such as the coveted "Silver Snoopy" awarded by the astronauts of the United States, would suggest otherwise). "It's an absolute key of living in this country, you have to be enthusiastic," he tells the audience as he describes his matriculation to the University of Chicago, the tribulations and principles learned from publishing his book, his exploration of landscapes in Botswana's fluvial regions that pushed the boundaries of his comprehension, and his current role "teaching astronauts what they're seeing" during glimpses at high speed from the windows of spacecraft. "If you can be enthusiastic about whatever you are doing, and have some of the disciplines that go with it, you can do what you want in this country."  But recent developments in Professor Wilkinson's research would add a truly intriguing proposition: that this enthusiasm for one's subject has the power to remove the blinders of conventional thought, and reveal greater connections to other aspects of our world that we can only imagine. This is evidenced by the startling recent discovery that patterns the Professor has observed in fluvial megafans, his particular specialization, bear uncanny resemblances to distributions of bird DNA in those same regions, a discovery which could bear implications that reach far beyond the geosciences. And yet as inspiring and entertaining as Professor Wilkinson's narrative was, it couldn't help but be upstaged by the true star of the show: the planet Earth itself. In an embodiment of the very enthusiasm he advocates, Professor Wilkinson strayed from the topic of his experiences and shared what really interested him — his work. In so doing, he made his point all the more effectively, as he displayed the jaw-dropping photographs he has helped identify for NASA, the majority of which were taken with 1,000 mm lenses an average of a hundred thousand feet above the surface of the earth by his students, views of our planet that had never before been seen by human eyes. It is his role as guide to the unique properties of the Earth's geomorphology through such rare and stunning images that has won Professor Wilkinson a certain measure of celebrity, and his marvelous ability to describe the exotic and magnificent canvas that is the surface of our planet was on colorful display. As he paged through slide after slide, the breathtaking beauty of the photos, paired with the Professor's unmistakable delight in sharing them with his audience, gave these students a glimpse of something perhaps more beautiful still: the true harmony and perfection that can be attained by a brilliant mind doing what it loves. If Professor Wilkinson continues to share with us his infectious enthusiasm for this beautiful discipline, then before long we all may end up changing our name to the Society of Enthusiastic Geomorphologists. You can view photos of the planet taken by Prof. Wilkinson's students at the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. |
