Name: Deb Baker

Job title: PhD student in Solar Physics

What education and qualifications do you have?

B.S. from Cornell University
M.Sci (Astronomy) from University College London

Give an outline of your career so far

Upon graduation from Cornell, I pursued a career in commodities trading with Cargill Inc in the U.S., Europe and Africa. I traded various commodities including metals, sugar and coffee. My time spent at Cargill involved trading physical commodities and their derivative products such as futures and options. I transferred my commodities trading skills to financial markets when I joined U.S. investment bank Bear Stearns in London. At Bear Stearns, I was involved in setting up and running a hedge fund that specialized in fixed income arbitrage trading. I left Bear Stearns after close to 20 years of trading to pursue a research career in astronomy.

Why did you choose this career path?

Astronomy has been a hobby since I was in primary shcool. Growing up during the manned space program during the late 60s/early 70s had a lasting influence on me. My parents encouraged my interest and took me to the local observatory and gave me my first telescope when I was 10 years old. Since then I have been hooked on astronomy. I decided to formally pursue a career in astronomy and enrolled at UCL as a mature student.

What does your current work involve?

Currently, I am a first year PhD student in the Solar & Stellar Physics Group at MSSL. I am starting a project on flux emergence in coronal holes exploring the relationship between CMEs, CME source regions and coronal holes.