When U.S. Sen. Harry Reid recently asked physics major Vanessa Harvey how she became interested in science, he couldn't possibly have known just how long - or how engaging - her answer might have been.
Harvey, a UNLV senior studying astronomy, met Reid and the other members of Nevada's congressional delegation when she attended a conference in Washington, D.C., to present information about her research on galaxies.
She was one of 100 students from 38 states selected to participate in the conference - called a "poster session" - held on Capitol Hill; members of Congress were invited to attend the session to look over the students' informational displays and ask questions.
"All of them asked great questions," says the modest, soft-spoken Harvey, who was clearly excited about her opportunity to talk with the congressmen about her research. But it was Reid's inquiry about the origins of her interest in science that remained in her mind after the event.
When they met, time constraints prevented her from offering him anything more than the abbreviated version of her story, but she laughingly acknowledges that she could have "gone on for a couple of hours" in response to his question.
After all, Harvey has thought a great deal about her search
for the right academic path and how that search led her to
pursue a second bachelor's degree. She took a slightly
circuitous route, she notes, but one that has provided her
with insights on the importance of undergraduate research, the
contribution of African-American women in society, the
disconcerting effects of self limitation, and the value of
encouragement. By anyone's standard, it would've been
tough to fit all of that into a Washington minute.
Harvey began her quest for the right path in the small town of Waterbury, Conn., where she was born and raised. She found herself drawn at an early age to the performing arts. By 14, she was enrolled in dance classes and began dabbling in community theater; by her senior year in high school, she was narrowing her choices.
"At the time, I was exploring different things. I thought I would study dance in college, but I had also taken physics in high school. And my physics teacher was very encouraging; he had a daughter who was in dance also, so he knew how much I enjoyed it," says Harvey, now 25.
"But he also said that if I chose to go into physics, a lot of doors would open to me."
That thought remained in the back of her mind as she enrolled in a private college in Connecticut with the intention of studying modern dance. Along with her dance classes, she took the usual required courses. One of her science course options was astronomy.
"I had never had astronomy before," Harvey recalls. "I enjoyed it very much. It was my first chance to learn about celestial objects and to handle a real telescope. Prior to that, astronomy was an abstract concept. Then, there I was each week, out in the cold night air observing these objects myself. It was wonderful."
But she was still a freshman and hadn't yet decided which major to choose. She had intended to major in dance, but she was beginning to feel ambivalent about her dance program.
"I guess encouragement does matter in where you go in life," she says. "I wasn't getting a lot of encouragement in the dance program there, probably in part because I was an intermediate student. Being intermediate at something is very difficult. In any case, I found that maybe I was just beating my head against the wall for nothing.... I guess I discovered that my commitment just wasn't there."
Then, when one of her dance instructors suggested that any dancer should have a backup career plan, Harvey's mind was made up: She would minor in dance and look for a different academic major and career path.
She had enjoyed astronomy so much in her freshman year that it became her next choice. But other factors about the program troubled her.
"I didn't see any women or any black women in physics, so I thought maybe it wasn't where I should be. I had come from a co-ed high school where there were always women in my science and math classes. When I found that I was the only woman in my freshman astronomy class, my response was, 'Oh, my goodness. What is this all about?'
"I talked to my professor about it. I guess he thought that if you wanted to study physics, you just came to class. He wasn't very inspirational. His response was basically, 'So what?' So I decided maybe it wasn't the place for me."
At that point, Harvey decided to design her own degree ? one that would enable her to explore some issues of personal significance.
"What I did was design an interdisciplinary degree involving American history, American literature, and women's studies. I wanted to look at what African-American women thought of their own lives. So my independent study project in my senior year was to read various books by black women to really nail down for myself what black women thought of their lives. I also looked more generally at feminist theory and how the personal lives of these women became political and social; this involved some literary textual analysis. I was using text written by black women as a basis to understand my heritage and how I fit into society."
Also in her senior year she decided to give physics one last try.
"I had already taken care of my science requirement, but I really wanted to challenge myself in a different way. Physics seemed very intimidating, so I wanted to demystify it. And when I looked back on my decision not to study physics and astronomy when I was a freshman, I felt that I had kind of copped out, that I had let exterior forces influence me. So I just decided that I was going to get in there and go for it."
Coincidentally, a female astronomer joined the physics department that year and was very encouraging to Harvey, who soon began to volunteer to set up telescopes for public viewing sessions with the new professor. With her interest in astronomy piqued once again, Harvey was re-examining her options. And her independent study work had opened her eyes to the possibilities.
"I realized that even though I was the only black woman sitting in that astronomy class, I could hold my own because I say so - and because all of the black women I've read about and all of the black women who have influenced my life have held their own.
"So science was this big, scary thing and still very male dominated, but I realized that if I really chose to go into it, I was going to put my head down and drive forward. I realized that astronomy was how I was going to contribute."
From there, things fell into place. Harvey graduated with a
degree in American studies in 1994 and set out to find a new
institution at which she could catch up on undergraduate
physics and astronomy in order to pursue the disciplines
further.
At that point, her sister had been living in Las Vegas for three years, and her mother was planning to relocate here. Harvey decided to join her mother and sister; soon she was enrolled in the UNLV physics department.
"I was living with my mom and working up on the northwest side of town at Albertson's while I was going to school. I had a pretty long commute. So I talked to Dr. Farley [UNLV physics professor John Farley] about my situation, and he offered me a job in his lab as a research assistant in laser spectroscopy," Harvey says. "It was great because it gave me the opportunity to explore other areas of science. Also, I wanted to get a sense of what else was out there in science just to make sure I wasn't narrowing my choices too soon."
But the stars beckoned her once more. Knowing of Harvey's interest in the field, astronomy professor Donna Weistrop invited her to go on an "observing run" to the observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., in the spring of her first year at UNLV.
"Loved it!" Harvey exclaims, explaining that she helped Weistrop continue some of her research on the optical variability of quasars during the trip. Weistrop was so impressed with her work and her commitment that she offered Harvey another opportunity soon afterward.
"Dr. Weistrop said that in the fall - if I was really interested in astronomy - that she had funds to pay me to reduce the data that we had gathered on our observing run," Harvey says. "It was a wonderful chance to learn astronomy from the ground up."
Thus began a series of opportunities for Harvey in the field of astronomy. Later that year, she was offered a summer internship at Kitt Peak National Observatory; the following two summers she completed additional internships, one at Maria Mitchell Observatory in Nantucket, Mass., and another at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Meanwhile, back at UNLV Harvey began a new research project with Weistrop in the fall of 1996 that eventually resulted in the findings she presented at the Washington, D.C., poster session.
"The project was basically a study of the character of galaxies that lie in voids, which are low-density regions of the universe," Harvey explains.
She adds that their study focused on the structure and brightness of galaxies in the voids; they observed, classified, and compared more than 60 galaxies in 10 different voids.
One of their findings enabled them to identify a probable limitation of one of Weistrop's earlier studies on the galaxies in a void in the constellation Boötes. The earlier study, conducted with another student, had indicated that galaxies in the Boötes void had a substantially higher percentage of peculiarities in structure and brightness than did the galaxies Weistrop and Harvey saw in the 10 voids they examined.
"As part of our study, we speculated on what caused that higher percentage," Harvey says, adding that they concluded that a bias, or selection effect, in the way that the sample of Bo?es void galaxies was chosen might have been responsible.
Overall, their study offers a considerable supply of new data on galaxies in voids that was previously unavailable.
"Determining the character of the galaxies in these voids
will tell us about the voids themselves and how environment
plays a role in galaxy formation," Harvey says, explaining
that any way they can enhance the understanding of how
galaxies are formed will, in turn, help astronomers better
understand the development of stars and the evolution of the
universe.
Harvey is still sometimes amazed that she is actually getting to work on such a sophisticated and fascinating astronomy research project.
"When I first studied physics, I didn't know what it was all about," she says, smiling. "It was about pulleys and levers, and sometimes it didn't seem like it had anything to do with me. And when I first came here, I thought I'd just be sitting in classes. I never thought my life would actually open up to doing research; I didn't think I'd have the chance to work from the ground up, to do the class work, and then learn how to apply it.
"I'm really surprised and pleased that I could do research as an undergraduate," she says. "And then to be able to express that effectively to people in a poster session ... well, the whole process has just been so valuable.
"And Dr. Weistrop - she's the best. I admire her clear thinking. She thinks very scientifically; but she also understands when I walk into her office and need some encouragement. I just think she's the consummate professional."
Weistrop thinks highly of her student as well.
"Vanessa is an enthusiastic, diligent, and hard-working student," she says. "Not many students would undertake a second bachelor's degree to pursue an interest. It's a pleasure to work with her. Her enthusiasm is quite contagious; she insists on understanding what she is doing, and why, and will persistently ask questions if something is not clear. I expect her to have a successful career in astronomy."
She appears to be on her way. Once Harvey finishes her undergraduate work this year, she plans to go on to pursue master's and doctoral degrees in astronomy. At this point, she is fascinated by the idea of developing her own instrumentation to continue her research.
"It's still a fairly vague notion in my head right now. It's like I meet someone who has gone in that direction, and I say, 'Oooo. You work on your own instrument!'" she laughs. "It's still in the general, 'Oh-that's-so-neat' stage.
"But that's the way I began with physics. It was a general notion, but then I started doing it, and it started becoming so much fun."
And that, she acknowledges, is - in a nutshell - the short answer to Senator Reid's question.
