“There’s so much out there that we don’t know, and I’m thoroughly enjoying following this career path and understanding the science behind it,” says Belfast native Evelyn Johnston.
For almost a decade now, Dr Johnston has been working as an astronomer in Chile, one of the top destinations in the world for stargazing. She says she is working in the middle of an “exploding” industry, as the country is capitalising on its clear skies and driving forward with astronomical research and development.
Having left Belfast at 18 to study physics and astronomy at the University of Sheffield, Johnston says she first fell in love with Chile when she worked in an observatory there during her fourth year.
“I got to spend a year working at an observatory. I became like a real astronomer working with this huge telescope. That’s where it grabbed me. That was the point I knew I wanted to continue in astronomy for the rest of my career.”
As Chile invests in its natural resource of clear night skies, its astronomy industry is rapidly expanding with researchers flocking from all over the world to settle there
After returning to the University of Nottingham and completing a PhD, in 2014, she grasped the opportunity of a job offer at an observatory in Chile.
“Chile is an amazing country for astronomy. It’s one of the top two or three places in the world in terms of the clarity of the night sky. Almost all of the most important telescopes are based here, in Hawaii or in Panama,” she said.
“Astronomy in Chile is really exploding. There’s been observatories here for 20 or 25 years but in the last 10 years, astronomy research has really grown.”
Johnston says that as Chile invests in its natural resource of clear night skies, its astronomy industry is rapidly expanding with researchers flocking from all over the world to settle there.
“We’ve had this influx of astronomers who’ve moved here, fallen in love with the country and who love their jobs. Most of it is research, to push our own understanding of our place in the universe and its risks,” she says. “But even if you don’t want to do science, people can still come and work at the observatories as engineers and even in the hospitality industry, as observatories have hotels on site for visiting astronomers. There are a lot of different options.”
Johnston says that, growing up in Belfast, she always knew she would move away, encouraged by her parents.
“I think my parents knew Ireland is very small, and told us to get out and see the world. They were always very encouraging of me to get out and explore, but I don’t think they ever envisioned and visualised that I would settle so far away.
“There are always going to be new experiences so I think you have to just embrace it and go off with an open mind, say yes to everything that comes along, and just give it a go. Even if you hate it, you come back with some good stories at the end,” she says.
Don’t study something because someone tells you this will make a great career. Decide at school what is your favourite subject and what actually interests you
Adapting to life in Chile has not been without its challenges, she says, including slang-heavy Chilean Spanish. But learning the local language has been key to making a home there.
“It’s been tricky. But if I move somewhere, I want to try and make an effort to integrate into the country and the best way of doing that is to learn the local language because then you pick up more about what’s happening,” she says.
Johnston is now working as an assistant professor at the Universidad de Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile’s capital, and is researching how nearby galaxies were formed and how they might transform in the future. She also has a role as an operations scientist in the construction of a new observatory being built to survey the entire Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds, the nearest galaxies to Earth that can only be seen in the southern hemisphere.
She says her biggest piece of career advice is to follow what you’re interested in.
“Don’t study something because someone tells you this will make a great career. Decide at school what is your favourite subject and what actually interests you. If you go on to study those at university or a college, you will find a career that uses that knowledge, uses those skills. Then you end up with a job that you enjoy.
“I still it find amazing to go to the observatory and look up at the sky, which is so clear. You can see the Milky Way, you can see so many stars, and there’s so much out there that we still just don’t understand. There are so many different aspects to astronomy; every day you learn something new, and I love that.”
