My work day

The days at work are very different – on the day that I teach, this is the dominating part of the day, and also the day before, I spend preparing. Typically, we have one visitor per week at our institute, and if they work in my field, I meet, discuss science, and attend the seminar. I don’t attend the seminars that are in the afternoon because I am then already back home. You see my whiteboard is full of science (plots and equations) as well as family photos and the kids’ drawings – I think this reflects the balance I try to keep.

My 10 months-old son, Alexander, wakes up at about 6.00, either me or my husband, Harald, spend time with him, typically in the kitchen. Then I drink my first coffee. At 7.00 we wake up Mila, my 10 year old daughter, then she eats her breakfast - she typically leaves the house at 7.40. I like this time of the day, early in the morning- I am definitely a morning person. When I am awake, I am rather energetic but I need enough sleep – about 9 hours a night, probably wasting a large fraction of my life sleeping. I then get dressed and ready, sometimes while carrying Alexander. I also try to arrange and clean up the living room and the bathrooms in this ‘free’ time of mine. Our Nanny comes at 9 a.m., and I leave for work. I live nearby, so I walk.

At work, I mostly sit, therefore I have a special, comfortable chair. I am usually in the office by 9.15. Sometimes, I already check my email at home, but this is also the first thing I do at work: I check if there are any urgent emails and other things that have to be dealt with. The first hour is usually very quiet, and I get another coffee in the Institute. Then, people start coming to my office and my door is open most of the time. Sometimes, my office feels like a train station, with people coming and going. I like to be involved in the science my group is working on - I am interested and feel the responsibility and ask people how their work is going or if they need help.

In terms of science, I have the feeling that I haven’t done science in years, but this is probably not true. The type of work is just different, there are different natural phases during your career. Nowadays, I write less papers, more review papers and I advise my PhD students and Postdocs on our papers, and do small calculations myself. When other people do the research, I feel that it is harder to have the intuition and the deep understanding for a topic if you work on so many projects simultaneously. But I like to be involved in all of them. It is important to me, because after all I am a scientist.

I always have many snacks around me, at home too, but also at work – but typically people don’t want to eat them. I usually don’t go to eat lunch with the others at 12.30, as it is very crowded, the food is bad and I am a slow eater and don’t like it if people have to wait for me. Most of the times, I eat a sandwich before noon, but I keep eating small things during the day. I do eat a lot of sweets, I think I need the energy to keep things going.

Last month, I submitted a review paper (with T. Guillot) on giant planet interiors, which is now accepted. It dealt with the internal structure of giant and icy planets and will be added as a chapter to the Exoplanet Handbook. I just published another paper in ApJL (with D. Stevenson), about the fuzziness of giant planets’ cores. I really like this subject: giant planet formation and evolution and their internal structure and anything that has to do with Exoplanets. I really do like my job. Reviewing papers and giving talks at meetings is time consuming and I learned to say yes only to papers that are close to my own line of work and to review/invited talks. You have to learn to say no to some things.

In the afternoon, my brain stops working properly at about 14.00. While I am rather energized in the morning, my energy drops in the afternoon. For that reason, I try to do the things that need less concentration, such as bureaucratic paperwork. Before 16.00, I already go home, back to Mila and Alexander. Then we play a little bit, Mila comes from school, we talk about her day, eat, and she does her homework, and then I am also cooking dinner. Harald comes in the evening, most of the time before the kids go to bed.