Space Careers: Henrik Melin
- 23rd Aug 2023
- Author: Dhara Patel
London to Los Angeles to Leicester
Dr Henrik Melin is an STFC JWST Fellow and Planetary Scientist working at the University of Leicester. Raised in Sweden, he moved to London to complete his undergraduate studies in astrophysics and then continued on to do a PhD in planetary science. After three years in Los Angeles working on the Cassini mission to Saturn, he decided to move to Leicester.
Wait what? He decided to move from LA to Leicester!?
A change most would contemplate, but as Henrik put it himself:
“pretty weird, but [University of Leicester] is renowned when it comes to planetary science. It’s got a really large planetary science group involved with a lot of missions and things like that. So, I just felt it'd be a cool place to work, you know, somewhere that's involved with so many different things.”
Henrik is also a regular visitor to the National Space Centre and every few weeks or so you can find him presenting free short talks on his research and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in our LIVE Space gallery. I decided to catch up with Henrik about his journey and career and to also speak to him about his identity and experiences – as a member of the LGBTQ+ community working in the science and space sector.
So what do you do as a Planetary Scientist?
Well, we use telescopes on the ground and in space to try to understand the other planets in our Solar System. I'm interested in the giant planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. And the idea is by understanding and studying these other worlds, we can begin to understand our own place in the Solar System and the wider cosmos. So by studying these places, it really gives us perspective on who we are and where we are in space. A sort of, broad, big picture stuff!
And the other part of your title - what does being an STFC JWST Fellow mean?
Right. Well, it was a programme formed to support the James Webb Space Telescope and there's only three fellows in the whole country, and I'm obviously one of them. And so what we do - we're focused on the science, each of us looking or researching different things like the evolution of galaxies and the birth and death of stars, or gas giant planets like me. The fellowship obviously comes with its own funding to do that - it's a five year programme. There's around 300 British scientists working on Webb data which is open to anyone, it's public. As soon as it hits the server, basically anyone can go and download it. So, I'm not different in that sense from anyone else. I think it's just that I got dedicated funding to do research using data from Webb.
What's the best thing that you've been able to do or achieve in your career so far?
This is a tricky one. There are so many career highlights for me but certainly working on the Cassini mission and being involved with that is up there, because you have a spacecraft flying around the most beautiful planet there is, taking extraordinary data and images and you're part of that. I just felt so extraordinarily lucky to be able to be there. And secondly, I think this - the Webb thing, right! To be a Webb Fellow - being allowed the opportunity to do this science because all the data that comes in from the telescope is data we've never seen before. Point the telescope at anything and because it's such an extraordinary facility, you're going to see things you just couldn't see before. So in this early James Webb Space Telescope phase, there is so much discovery science you can do and it's kind of cool to be a part of that.
"Uh, it's probably what you think. It's like, you know, a lot of dill, a lot of pickled things."
You were born and raised in Sweden - what was growing up there like?
Uh, it's probably what you think. It's like, you know, a lot of dill, a lot of pickled things.
(He really did just say dill as in the herb - I didn't realise that was a very Swedish thing)!
Pickled fish, all kinds of things. No, it was great. I still have very close friends I grew up with in Sweden, which is where meet every other year or so. And I lived just outside the city in the suburbs and we would just go out 25 metres that way and we were in the forest and just playing around in nature.
It felt small fitting - I grew up in a town of about 120,000 people. It's not a big city. It's got some bars, but that's about it. And a lot of other queer kids sort of gravitate towards the big cities. For me, it was always London, I always wanted to go to London because you have these communities there, you get access and opportunity to mingle with all kinds of people. And so at 19 I left Sweden to study at University College London (UCL).
Who would you say your role role models are, and who or what inspired you to get interested in space?
There wasn't an astronomer or something like that who I looked up to when I was a kid or anything, because I wasn't really into astronomy then.
The other thing is that I was really ill as a teenager. I have Crohn's disease so I was in hospital and my teenage years were a bit messed up. But I got surgery in 1993, so three years before I moved, and everything was fine after that. It's then that I started becoming more interested in school and stuff. But I didn't have any passions, didn't know what I wanted to do. We got the option of taking some elective courses - I think the first one I did was stenography (short hand, basically). It was the most useless course ever - I haven't used it once.
But another course I did take was astronomy. And not because I was interested in it, because my friend, also called Henrik, was doing it and I thought, ohh - I'll just hang out with him, it'll be fun, we'll have a laugh, you know, and do astronomy together. But I just loved it. That teacher was an inspiration to me because he just opened my eyes. It was like, what? This stuff exists. What? And so that's where it started. It was just random thing.
I started buying all the books and just reading along. Then when my dad turned 50, we went to London and were at Victoria station. At the WHSmith there, I bought an Astronomy Now magazine and in the middle there was an educational supplement and the front page of that supplement was the teaching telescope that they have at UCL. And so I thought, well hang on I could I could study astronomy at UCL and I love London already, and moving here would be a cool place to live! And then, yeah, I just applied and I got in.
"I think if I was to speak to me as a 17 year old, I think that kid would be pretty chuffed!
If astronomy wasn't a childhood passion, what were some of your early career aspirations?
Before I got interested in the astronomy, for some reason I wanted to be a journalist. I'm not sure where that thought came from, but I don't think I'd be good at it.
Perhaps if I wasn't doing astronomy, I'd probably be doing programming or something like that. Something techie. I have worked as a programmer in the past. I spent a year in Berlin between my undergrad and postgrad where I worked with a company that used franking machines - you basically input a letter in one end and on the other side you get a particular stamp or mail mark printed out. I was doing some hardware programming for them. I thought about continuing to do that, but I also I wanted to do a PhD.
During the end of my PhD with funding sort of running out I got a job working for Multimap - one of the big mapping providers at the time. I worked there for about eight months doing store finders - so you go to Sainsbury's and then you have to find the store near you. That was their product and it's how they made their money. They were a big business and later got sold to Microsoft. I didn't see any of that money, though! But then I moved to Los Angeles to do an astronomy post-doc, so...
I think if I was to speak to me as a 17 year old, I think that kid would be pretty chuffed!
We know that the Webb telescope has an expected lifetime of around 20 years. What outstanding science questions do you hope that we have answered by then?
That's a big question - we might be living on Mars by then!
I think for me, the most interesting science we can do is with the ice giants. We don't really know much about Uranus and Neptune. What we know about them came from the spacecraft that flew by in the 1980s. It was a long time ago, and with Webb these early observations seem to show that we can actually begin to understand these planets. I mean, we've never seen northern lights on Neptune before, but it seems probable that we can do that with Webb. And so to be able to begin to understand these world worlds is pretty amazing. Doing it from, you know, near Earth orbit.
There is a little bit of momentum on this already, but what we need is also a mission to either Uranus or Neptune, one of these big Cassini-style flagship missions. And that would be awesome. Although you might start building it today, you would launch, say around 2035? You get there like... 2044/2045. So it's not a mission for my generation of planetary scientists, but a mission for the next generation.
Just like the Cassini mission - it was conceived in the 1980's but I was working on it as a young postdoc. So yeah, it's kind of cool, isn't it? To think that someone can begin something and it's handed over so nicely to a future generation that weren't even around at the start - that weren't even born when this mission was conceived. To think that some of these kids that come to the Space Centre - they're going to be ones working on that data and using the camera.
And is there any way that you see the space sector changing from how it is now into the future?
Well, that's a good question. I think the makeup of this space sector, should I say, it doesn't really reflect society at large. I think the more people that want to be involved and work in the space sector, the better. It's a big tent and everyone is welcome to partake, to join. It should be a field that everyone feels like they are welcome in and can be a part of, I think. So there are a lot of white dudes for example, in academia. It's changing, but it's changing slowly. That's another intergenerational change in my opinion because these jobs are for life. If you get professorship that's you sorted, that's it, right? So it takes turnover which can be slow.
Fortunately I've not really had any negative experiences in telling people about my bisexuality, but I've done my studies and research in London, LA and Leicester - big cities with quite open views. But maybe that also tells you something about this particular research planetary science community I'm in, rather.
All of science is open to absolutely everyone, and when people with different identities, experiences, and backgrounds participate, the better off we are as a community - and that can be pretty powerful. We're all scientists, yes, but we're human too. And our experiences basically shape how we do our work. If I can be open and honest about who I am, I hope that others feel that they can do the same: to be themselves without having to hide or supress fundamental parts of what makes them who they are.
What's your advice to people who might be interested in pursuing a science or space career?
What's your advice to people who might be interested?
Just keep asking questions, be interested, seize opportunities when they are given. But sometimes you have to create your opportunities as well, right? For example, you do have to study hard to get good grades. That's in your own hands. There's also an element of luck in there I think, too. I feel extraordinarily lucky to have done all these things in my career but you can't rely on luck either. Maybe it's a mix, right? You've got to be proactive and seek opportunities. But also when you're lucky enough that things open up in front of you, try those things even if you're not sure you'll like them.
I mean, first of all, go to the space and you know, explore!
Full references / credits:
(Banner image) Henrik Melin - Planetary Scientist. Credit: Henrik Melin
(1) Henrik Melin presenting in the LIVE Space gallery. Credit: © National Space Centre.
(2) Henrik in front of the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility 3 metre primary mirror. Credit: Henrik Melin
(3a) London skyline. Credit: public domain (Pexels)
(3b) Henrik talking at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC). Credit: Henrik Melin
(4) Henrik being interviewed at the commencement of his Fellowship. Credit: Henrik Melin
(5a) Telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawaii that Henrik uses for his research. Credit: Henrik Melin
(5b) Henrik at the 2019 Leicester Pride celebration. Credit: Henrik Melin
(6) Visitors and the National Space Centre exploring spectroscopy. Credit: © National Space Centre
