Cuán de Barra

I’m currently a PhD student in UCD and my work involves building a detector to study the gamma radiation emitted when black holes are created. This detector will fly on a satellite that will launch in 2027. I chose to do a PhD because the project was something that really interested me and appealed to my skillset that I had developed in the masters including software. And I would get to work with black holes! I became aware of the project by getting to know my professors and their work and discussing future work with them. As part of the PhD I have had opportunities to travel all over the world to do courses and present my work including Washington DC, Delaware, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

As part of my PhD I currently also work for NASA, on a mission called Fermi which studies gamma-rays too.

Alongside this work I am also a spacecraft operator for EIRSAT-1 (Ireland’s first satellite). My job is to talk to the satellite as it passes over Ireland, check it is working, fix any problems onboard, and analyse the data we can download from the spacecraft. I was very keen to get involved with such an important project for the Irish space sector and the mission has been going really well. In fact recently we detected our first gamma-ray burst which occurs when stars turn into black holes.

Tip from Cuán for Leaving Cert Students: You don’t have to do a particular science for the leaving cert to study it in college. i.e. you don’t have to have done chemistry in school to do it in college. BUT it does help if you have already studied it before, your workload will be lighter. Personally, I thought that Applied maths really helped my college level physics as a lot of the content you cover in your first year more resembles Applied Maths than physics, but it is not at all necessary.