Marek Kukula says he was “one of those kids who is always asking questions” so perhaps becoming some kind of scientist was always on the cards. It was on a trip to the radio telescope at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire at the age of 14 that Kukula decided what he wanted to do – and he is now public astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.
“I remember being awestruck by this tremendous piece of engineering, then finding out that the astronomers were using it to try to understand where the entire universe came from, how it began,” he says. “I thought this was the most amazing and exciting intellectual adventure, and I wanted to be part of it.”
Kukula happened to be selecting the subjects he would go on to study at school at the time, and with his new ambition in mind he chose carefully.
“Physics and maths are the two most useful subjects in the standard path for going into astronomy and astrophysics,” he says. “I did GCSEs and A-levels and then studied physics at Manchester University. Once I had my physics degree, I went on to do a PhD in radio astronomy, which took me back to Jodrell Bank.”
After his doctorate, Kukula had a series of postdoctoral research positions in the UK and abroad, including spells at Liverpool John Moores, the University of Edinburgh and a two-year stint at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, home station for the Hubble.
“I was using all sorts of different telescopes, looking at radio waves, visible light, infrared and ultraviolet radiations,” he says. “I got to see galaxies that nobody else in the whole history of the human race had seen before.”
Kukula spent about 13 years moving around from one postdoc research job to the next, with each position lasting between two and five years. “It was quite varied and very international, which is the great thing about a career in science in general. You are working with people from all over the world, you probably get to travel and work abroad.” It does, however, demand a certain level of flexibility. “It’s quite a footloose career path, certainly in the early stages, and not a particularly secure one. You have to be prepared to up sticks and go where the jobs are.”
After years of following his curiosity through research, Kukula decided it was time for something different. “I had started as a researcher doing quite a lot of outreach work – talking to school kids, astronomy societies, WI groups, anyone who was interested in astronomy.
“I had also been doing a few TV and radio interviews about astronomical discoveries. I thought: ‘I really enjoy this public engagement side of things. I wonder if I could make a career doing that?’”
With that in mind, he developed a strategy. “I think to have a career in science communications, you obviously need to have an understanding of the science, but you also need to be able to organise and market events, drum up interest, talk to funders and apply for grants, so I started taking on different responsibilities and acquiring these skills by different routes.
“And then this amazing job came up at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, which is all about communicating science to the public and engaging the public with astronomy and astrophysics. And because I had a background in research, and had also developed my communications skills and had experience in running events, making things happen and networking with the right people, I had the right skill set and got the job … I’ve never looked back.”
It is extremely varied work. “I curate exhibitions about astronomy, I write books and I do a lot of TV and radio interviews, I get to talk to school kids, which is really good fun. But I guess the best bit is that I get to work with all these astronomers all over the world who are still making these amazing discoveries. Instead of just working on one very narrow area of research, I get to work with scientists working on everything from Mars rovers to the big bang, from supernova explosions to life on other planets.” Physics is the standard route into astronomy, but it is not the only one. “These days there are other ways into astronomy and space science. There are fields such as astrochemistry and astrobiology and chemistry and biology are becoming useful subjects for people wanting to study space. And then, of course, if you want to study the planets or the moon, having a background in geology could be a way in.” There are also ways in through engineering, Kukula says.
If you want to be an astronomer “you need to be someone with burning curiosity about the world,” he says. “And you have to be quite a methodical person. You need to be able to sit down and look at large amounts information and pick out useful patterns. You also need to be quite creative to spot those patterns in the first place and put bits of information together in a way that makes sense.”
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