Me

Hi. I'm Kristine - fifth year grad student in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Washington in Seattle. I love math and science. That's why I'm putting myself through the unnecessary torment of 6 extra years of education.

When I'm not at school or trapped in a zinc mine in Japan, I love to travel the world. So far I've been to South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Morocco, Honduras, Costa Rica, Mexico, England, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, and Canada (though Vancouver hardly counts as foreign from Seattle). I try to go to some place in Asia every other time I have to go to Super-K. But in addition to that, Turkey is on the short list and I'm hoping to get to South America and New Zealand eventually.

When I'm in Seattle I like to cook and eat not-American food. I've ocassionally attempted north African cooking but the stupid United States Postal Service broke my tagine from Morocco and the food is just not the same cooked in a casserole dish. My love of food has introduced me to gardening as a hobby. Now horticulture is my new science-on-the-side. In addition to science, I'll ocassionally delve into some light engineering to pass the time. Every now and then I'll build something like a swamp cooler, simple motor, speakers, or a tandoor out of common household objects. I also like to play with liquid nitrogen and very strong magnets. And, of course, all of these activities are greatly enhanced by the involvement of my husband and friends.

I grew up in Thornton, CO, a suburb north of Denver. I have a sister who's 4 years older, Kymm, and a brother who's 1 year younger, Charlie. I went to Skyview High School - the only high school in the state to go 0-10 in football my senior year (go wolverines!). And though I was editor of the school's year book and was given the English student award for my graduating class, most of my sentences are either in the monotonous subject-verb form or run-ons (sorry, Mrs. Hill). But I made some good friends at Skyview, many with whom I'm still in contact.

I went to CU Boulder for my bachelor's degree. Majored in math and physics and minored in astronomy and computer science. Didn't finish the CS minor because of one evil class (damn you, Intel 8086 assembly!). I also took a lot of classes from Front Range Community College and Metro State, who both go out of their way to make getting official transcripts from out of state nearly impossible.

Because I couldn't afford tuition otherwise, I worked all through school. The first year as a life guard and swim instructor at Sandra Miller pool and the last three as Engineering Support for Aerojet Electrical Systems, a defense contractor working on the Space-Based Infrared System with Lockheed Martin. There I learned a lot about engineering and the beauracracy of working for the government.

Presently I'm at the UW for my PhD. I've already got my masters and candidacy in Astronomy but am still working on the actual PhD and a masters in Applied Physics. I frequently have to go to Japan to work at the detector, Super-Kamiokande, which collects the data for my thesis. When I am at said detector I often find myself doing many miscellaneous activities such as completely redesigning my web page.

Since my husband, Jesse, has a real job working for the man, we were able to buy a house in Northgate. We live there with my brother Charlie, our birds Dweezil (the cockatiel) and Mojo (the conure), Echo the dog, and our red-eared slider turtle, Nanu. My other turtle, Xena, recently passed away (RIP Xena).

Ventures into the non-academic

By a combination of luck and innate coolness, I and some of my non-academic work have been featured in various media.

My photographic series of statues wearing pink tutus, "Pretty in Pink" is featured at WilliamsPhotographic.com

My travel journal from a 2005 trip to Morocco is published online at MagicMorocco.com

I appear twice on the cover of my friend Peter William's book "Medium Format Cameras" published by Amherst Media.

Correspondence

Email me at kristine@deluge.astro.washington.edu. Notice how I unfearfully put my own email address on the internet for all the world to see. This is because I don't feel the need to spell out the 'at' symbol because of paranoia about getting unwelcome email. And I have an excellent SPAM filter.

I used to think I was the only person who would surf around the web randomly emailing people whose pages I happened upon until some guy named Matthieu Nobelen emailed me randomly from my page. Thank you, Matthieu. Let's hope more people out there follow your good example and send me random email purely on the basis of having visited my home page. (Or if you're UNIX-savvy check out my .plan and .project)

If virtual correspondence isn't enough for you...

     Kristine Washburn
     c/o UW Astronomy
     Campus Box 351580
     University of Washington
     Seattle, WA 98195
     tel: 206-543-9095 (office)

And if you absolutely insist on in-person communication I'm in PAB-339, the desk by the window. But if you take up too much of my time you have to buy me coffee.

Former foosball partner, Graeme Lufkin, and me with John and John of They Might Be Giants.
Here's hoping you don't become a robot.