This Newfoundland scientist is studying the big bang with balloons in Antarctica

A Newfoundland-born scientist is part of an exciting research team working in Antarctica sending balloons into spaceto study cosmic radiation and the evolution of the universe.

Susan Redmond, afifth-year graduate student in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton originally from Portugal Cove-St. Philip's, was recently stationedat McMurdo Station in Antarctica as part of an interdisciplinary team of 15 researchers.

Redmond is part of the team working on the Spider-II telescope, a unit housing six telescopes designed tostudycosmic microwave background radiation.

"It studies kind of the afterglow of the big bang. And so we put that on a balloon to get above the majority of the atmosphere," Redmond told CBC News from Antarctica in December.

"We basically just fly around the continent, so over land the entire time, because we have to physically recover the hard drives in order to get our data afterwards."

Long duration research using balloons has been done in Antarctica for decades, said Redmond, who could be stationed on the continent for months at a time depending on weather and the team's launch window.

"Ballooning is definitely a bit of a chaotic career type," she said with a laugh."There's a lot of uncertainty with it, mainly because we're dependent on the weather."

After months of preparation across multiple continents, Redmond and the research team launched the Spider telescope 35 kilometres into space in late December. She has since relocated to New Zealand to begin work on another balloon-borne space telescope.

Redmond, an alumnusof Memorial University in co-op engineering, also worked with the European Space Agency and NASA before making the transition to a master'sof applied science and beginning work in Antarctica.

Working in a male-dominated field, she said,it's important that work continues to get more women like her into the sciences.

"We had a pretty good crew of women in my undergrad class, but it was like 15 per cent, 20 per cent max," she said.

"It's obviously better than it was, but there are instances where either you kind of get written off as a diversity hire. I've had that happen in internships, which is frustrating. But for the most part everyone's supportive and, like, I think there's been a new kind of culture around accountability."

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