Juan de Pablo  0:03  
Good afternoon. Thank you for joining me for the second lecture in the University of Chicago, Brazil collaboration in science lecture series. The fireside chat within Angela Olinto. I am Juan de Pablo, the Vice President of the University of Chicago for global initiatives, National Laboratories strategy and innovation. Before we begin to listen to today's program in Portuguese, click on the interpretation globe icon at the bottom of the screen and select Portuguese. Today's event will conclude with Audience Question and Answer. Please feel free to use the q&a function at the bottom of your screen to submit questions in English or Portuguese. Now, it is more important than ever to engage scholars from diverse backgrounds and across disciplines and regions to seek innovative, sustainable solutions to the problems facing humanity. The UChicago Brazil collaboration in Science Lecture Series showcases how scholars at the University of Chicago and their colleagues in Brazil have established cross border collaborations to answer the biggest questions facing society. What is bigger than the entire universe? Today we will have the opportunity to hear about the global nature of research in astrophysics, all while highlighting leading scientists career and research ties to Brazil. For we begin our conversation today, I would like to thank Consul General Belli for joining us today and for his support of this series through the innovation diplomacy program. Now I would like to introduce Consul General Belli. Benoni Belli has served as the Consul General of Brazil in Chicago since August of 2012. He is the author of two books and a career diplomat having served at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington and the Brazilian mission to the UN in New York. He has also held numerous positions the Brazilian foreign ministry, and has turned that the Brazilian embassies in Buenos Aires and Algiers, without further ado, Consul General Belli, the microphone is yours.

Benoni Belli  2:21  
Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us joining us for today's event. This is the second webinar of the University of Chicago and the Consulate General of Brazil's partnership. Under the Brazilian foreign ministry's innovation diplomacy program. This series of conversations aims at strengthening the collaboration among universities, leading scholars and Brazilian scientists and research institutes. I would like to thank Dr. Juan de Pablo, Vice President for National Laboratory Science, strategy, innovation and global initiatives for his support and enthusiasm. And I would like also to thank the protagonists of today's conversation in particular, my friend, Dr. Angela Villela Olinto,  Dean of the Physical Sciences Division at the University of Chicago. Dr. Olinto's trajectory that will be highlighted in this webinar is an inspiration, not only for the Brazilian community here in Chicago, but also for Brazilians all over the world, especially those who aspire to make a significant contribution to science and to humanity. Dr. Olinto is a role model for young girls and boys and for all of us. Our personal journey shows what one can achieve with dedication, hard work and passion for science. Her example also corroborates that excellence in science can also and should go hand in hand with an accurate perception and understanding of society, as well as an unwavering commitment to a better life for all. A society that values diversity, inclusion and social justice as an example, so is that pride, pride for all Brazilians, here in Chicago, and elsewhere. Thank you, Angela, for being such an inspiration. Allow me to thank Dr. Joao de Mello Neto, professor of physics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro for accepting the invitation for this chat with Dr. Angela Villela Olinto. I am sure this will be a fascinating exchange. Professor Mello Neto is not only a renowned academic in the field of physics, but also an accomplished playwright, in which he explores the connections between human beings the universe, Physics and Astronomy. I understand we have a record number of registrations for this event, I was informed. So I'm sure everyone looks forward to hearing from our panelists. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thank you once again, and enjoy the conversation.

Juan de Pablo  4:54  
Thank you very much. Consul General Belli, for your remarks and for your support on this series. And with that, I would like to introduce our two speakers and longtime collaborators, Dean Angela Villa Olinto and Professor Joao de Mello Neto. Angela Vilella Olinto is Dean of the Physical Sciences Division at the Albert A. Mickelson Distinguished Service professor in the Department of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago, the Enrico Fermi Institute, the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, illogical physics and the college. As a leader in natural particle physics. She's best known for her work on studying compact stars, made of quarks, primordial natural inflation, the origins and evolution of cosmic magnetic fields, and the origin of the highest energy cosmic rays, gamma rays, and neutrinos. In 2021, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and beyond her accomplishments, then Angela Olinto is simply a wonderful person, a wonderful mentor, and a dear dear friend. Let me now introduce Professor Joao de Mello net, the discussion will be moderated by him. Joe is a professor of physics at the Institute of Physics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. His research is also at the forefront of particle physics. And he has worked on numerous experiments at CERN, for example, and a Fermi National Laboratory. Most recently, he has been working on studying ultra high energy cosmic rays athe Pierre Auger Observatory and event simulation for the DUNE experiment at Fermilab. Welcome, Joao. The floor is yours. Thank you very much for joining us, both of you. Please unmute, Joao.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  6:54  
Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. I know Professor Angela Olinto for many years we met at Fermilab later, we work together in cosmic ray physics. We have published many papers together and have participated many conferences around the world, in China, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Chicago, many other places. We have a very good professional relationship. And also she's a very good friend of mine. So I'll call her Angela from now on. And it's my pleasure to be here, talking about her career. So Angela, to begin our conversation today would the share how you first became interested in a career in astronomy and astrophysics with us.

Angela Olinto  7:52  
Thank you. Well, thank you, Juan. Thank you, Consul Benoni. I'm such a pleasure to be here and talking to draw a good old friend and collaborator. So the question is, how did I begin to be interested in astronomy and astrophysics. And so my first goal was to get to Rio de Janeiro. So it wasn't exactly a you know, long term goal. But it was a goal in middle school. Because middle school I moved from Rio to Brasilia and I'm really wanting to get back to the beach. So I tried to do that as fast as possible, which meant that I did High School a little shorter, I did two years in the same so two grades on the same year of studying pretty fast to be able to get back and did the exam earlier than folks. So they got into the University at 16. It was really wonderful to be accepted into one of the top universities in the physical sciences in the late 70s. And that's Pontificia Universidad catolica of Rio de Janeiro or PUC, which is a little easier to, to say. And, and the environment there was really very special both in terms of the sciences and physics in particular, but also in terms of what was happening in the country. So it was a very interesting time. And then later, so you know, as an undergraduate, I really focused on physics, but later it came to the west and joined the MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology to do my PhD and what was plan a particle physics theoretical work. And during that period that I ran into astrophysics. So by trying to become a particle physics theorist, I ended up an astrophysicist. And it's been a pleasure, right? I mean, there's so many questions in astrophysics that are fascinating. And the area that I focused on as Juan had introduced some of my work is a field that was emerging at the time of my PhD and we call it Astro particle physics, which, you know, the idea of the field is to use cosmic systems and the universe, as a whole, as a laboratory to understand fundamental physics, so the particle physics side and the astrophysics and astronomy side getting all together to try to further our understanding of nature. So that's how I got to astronomy and astrophysics.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  10:16  
Wonderful. So you, can you tell us a little about the research you are working on now. 

Angela Olinto  10:24  
Sure. So first, I want to, you know, from my PhD, I joined Fermilab as a postdoc. And that's where I met Joao. And we survived the tough winters of Chicago with the Brazilian group, making the place as warm as it gets. And also playing great volleyball, if you remember, we were the one of the best teams. So it was really fun. I used to set the, the for the strikers of the team. So that was great. And Joao was one of those fighters. And, and in at Fermilab that, you know, Astro particle physics idea together with cosmology was an emerging field, it was a leading area, a leading place to do that science. So getting a postdoc there from MIT was really special. And, and that's where I worked on natural inflation and cosmic magnetic fields. And so I sort of developed other areas from the stars, the quark stars that I worked on, as a PhD student. And, you know, that led me to collaborate with, then I moved to the University of Chicago. And then at the University of Chicago, I started interacting with Jim Cronin, Nobel laureate who was planning the OSHA projects that Joao and I would then later participate on. And in his planning of that project, he asked me about cosmic magnetic fields. So that's how I got interested in the highest energy particles. And it's pretty impressive to learn that the universe is sending us these particles with energy, so much larger than we can produce in laboratories that it became a wonderful sort of challenge to try to understand where they're coming from, what are they how they interact. So that's been sort of a focus for quite some time. So we had a great time Joao and I in Argentina, you know, making the project go forward looking for the data, having wonderful trouts in the nearby tiny towns of Malawi. And and then today, I want to continue that field. But there is a challenge in this field all together, which is the fluxes of these particles are very, very low. So we need, you know, 3000 square kilometers, which is the size of [unknown] is not enough. So I've been working hard on trying to get to a next stage, which, in my opinion, would be a space observatory. And so we have a collaboration of 13 countries that worked on developing this new project, which you know, the name is POEMMA, which is poem in Portuguese, and definitely my Brazilian side was one of the inspirations for POEMMA stands for the probe of extreme multi-messenger astrophysics. And that's a design that we were hoping to be able to launch by the end of the decade. In the meantime, we've been launching smaller projects. One is in this international space station and a smaller version of what the POEMMA mission would do. And we're also launching balloons. So NASA has a wonderful platform of launching a new system, which is the super pressure balloons that can be launched from New Zealand and spend in principle, 100 days rotating around the south, the Antarctica continent, so in the ocean, above the ocean, but you know, moving in circles with the winds. And that's what we launched in 2017. And we're now finishing a very nice two telescope project, one for the cosmic rays, and one for the neutrinos. And those are being tested starting the end of this year. And we'll be putting those all together to ship to New Zealand by the end of next year. So that's what I'm working on now.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  13:56  
Yes, very nice. And so Angela, in what ways, ties with your alma mater, as you mentioned, Pontificia Universidad catolica of Rio de Janeiro and other universities and risk collaborators in Brazil, advancing your research.

Angela Olinto  14:17  
Actually, I was just at PUC here yesterday. not physically, I'm not in three dimensions in two dimensions, giving a colloquium and you know, just visiting even from far away and just seeing my colleagues that are there now does bring me back to these incredibly strong four years of really, very formative time when you define not only the science you want to do, what kind of profession you're going to choose. But also it was an interesting time in the sort of fight for democracy in Brazil. So I spent as much time at bUC elarning quantum mechanics as well as organized organizing the students for protests for Wrying to push the the ability of the country to move forward towards a more democratic and open society. So I think that is something that also is helpful in even leading collaborations to understand how to, you know, try to get the common denominator of a lot of folks with lots of strong opinions to be able to push in the same direction and have some common background, you know, with with the right intention with the right goal. So that was quite interesting. I mean, PUC for those who haven't visited is a beautiful campus. And it's, you know, in wooded areas, and really a wonderful environment, and in terms of the physical sciences, and engineering was always very, very strong, it's strong in other areas, too, and other members of my family have been there for other reasons. So it was very formative. And, you know, I'll take the next just elaborate on following up on tthe PUC eexperience to talk a little about coming to the US because, you know, obviously, they're, they're wonderful things, when you move to the US to do science, there is an unparalleled opportunity to reach the highest levels of scientific accomplishments, we have a US higher education and research tradition that is unmatched in the world. And that is really a wonderful opportunity. However, being a woman at MIT, and the early 80s was definitely not as comfortable as being at PUC . So that was kind of a shocker that when I entered MIT, there were 60 men and two women in the class. And it was not the most comfortable situation. And we certainly didn't feel very invited. So I think that was one of the sort of surprises coming to the US, which also pushed me a little bit to be more aware of that issue of diversity that was mentioned before. So I think, you know, and one thing that is sort of relates to PPUC in a sense is that I didn't feel that before I felt in, in Rio that, you know, we had female faculty, and we had female colleagues, students and, and leaders in the student movement, too. So you know, sure enough, there are discrimination everywhere. And we are a pretty, you know, we were even more macho country, but in Brazil, but I think I didn't feel the same issue with belonging, let's put it that way, in Brazil, that I did it later. So that was one of the things that became a shocker. But back to collaborating with  Brazilians still today. You know Joaoa oand I had a wonderful grant CNP Q, which is the Brazilian NSF and NSF joint grant to support graduate students and faculty exchanges between the Federal University of RRio de Janeiro. NATO and the University of Chicago. And I think that was a wonderful collaboration. We had folks that were involved are now faculty and important universities in Brazil and Argentina. And, you know, half of them are women, which was another wonderful aspect of, you know, having that kind of collaboration in the current projects. Unfortunately, I'm not I mean, as involved as in DOJ with the Brazilian side, because for some reason, you know, the group that was doing these things to begin with involved 13 other countries, but not Brazil, in particular, I think it would be great to involve more rBrazilians in this effort to that the space part. I mean, we were in funded by NSF. And do we, which has a long tradition of exchanges with Brazil, I think the NASA side has not had the same tradition. So I think it's probably a good idea for us to investigate how to open more of those bridges in the NASA side, too. So you know, something for us to do some homework.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  19:11  
Good. I do agree that the fight for science is always very important always. And but to ask you something else. You have held numerous leadership positions throughout your career, including Chair of the Department of astronomy and astrophysics, and now you are a dean of the physical science at the University of Chicago. What most interested you about taking on these roles and what have been some of the most rewarding and most challenging aspects of the leadership in science?

Angela Olinto  19:50  
Okay, usually, you know, well, right, because you've seen me organize many dinners and other events. When we were just postdocs and graduate students, so you know, I think I have a natural tendency to jump in and want to coordinate things, and Joao nick named me general coordinator, or sometimes the travel agents also, depending on what is it that I'm coordinating trips were really fun. And by the way, having had all those travel experiences as graduate students, it helped to understand collaborations and how you know, the system works in different parts of the world. But in the scientific system, I mean, but others too. So I think naturally, I do like to coordinate, I have a very hard time letting silence or a leadership vacuum take over, I'm very pleased when somebody else is leading and it's things are moving, but when things stall, I get kind of antsy, so I kind of jump in, which sometimes I regret, but it is my nature. So I often, you know, thing, see things that I think I could do better, or could help, right. And that is kept me going in many, many ways. And so I think of, if I were to be a good musician, for example, I would probably prefer to be a conductor than a soloist. So you know, the idea of making others also doing things jointly is also a goal. It's not just running by myself in front of everybody, but it's getting everybody to move. So you know, that's, I think, a natural part of my personality. But, you know, aside from that tendency, I think, there's also a aspect of leadership that had to do with being a woman, I think, I've seen many women who picked up leadership roles probably ahead of the time, they should, against everybody's advice, and I have a theory, which might be wrong, but certainly in my case, it kind of applies. So when I became chair of the department, it was, you know, it's always fashionable in academia to say, I will never be an administrative person, right? I mean, I'm, I'm way too important as a scientist to be wasting time in leadership roles. So that's not for me. And that's sort of our culture. So for me to take on the chairmanship was surprising to many of my colleagues. It was also surprising to me that I was asked to take on chairmanship at that early time, because I had just finished getting my tenure. So I was, you know, an associate professor, and the chair would be, you know, sort of coordinating full full professors. And, in principle, being, anyway, being aware of what's going on. However, the one of the reasons that it was appealing to me was exactly to understand how things are going on. Because when you're the only woman in a department of 30, say, people, the men, the others, your colleagues, don't necessarily invite you to have a beard to chat about random things, right. So you either hear things in some organized way, or you don't know what's going on. And becoming chair was a way to understand the system and to be more included in these conversations. And I hope, you know, these days, people do get invited to have a beer from time to time. But you know, it is a delicate issue, because, you know, there could be misunderstandings and all kinds of problems. So I think the tendency as the only one of x type is to be become very isolated. And I think taking on leadership, in the case of the chairmanship made me less isolated. And that was kind of fun to understand how things work. And people had an excuse to talk to me, not all the time, for good reasons. But you know, it was a good, a good way to begin. But you asked me the hardest things as a leader, and the - the  most fun. So let's start with the hardest, which is pretty fast. It is personnel issues, right? So when you're an administrator, you will run into personnel issues, and sometimes you have to terminate the person and that is no fun, right? So that's, I think one of the hardest jobs is to, you know, have to reorganize and do the tough choices that often come your way.

Fortunately, in my career, at least, it wasn't super often, but they do happen in a regular basis, and one needs to take that on. On the positive side. I think it's, I think it's an infinite number of rewarding experiences. It's really many many. Some that have to do with just watching colleagues do brilliant work and enjoying that you were somewhat indirectly participating by helping them have the infrastructure or the right staff or the right funding at different levels. So that's very rewarding. also seeing the next generation my students and everybody else's students take on incredible leadership positions in other areas, sometimes in industry, sometimes in the sciences and the academic academy. So I think seeing the progress in that sense is another wonderful fulfilling part of being an adminstrator. And you know, sometimes just making things run faster and better. So that's always a good thing. One third item of on the positive side is starting new things is, you know, having ideas that might just be have wings, and you know, I keep having those ideas and some die. But some do take take off. And that's always a wonderful aspect.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  25:39  
Yeah, I, I read the project to NSF simply  to, you know, prepare myself for this discussion. And it's amazing how far we went. If you compare how the field was 20 years ago, 10 years ago. So now you we could talk about, I mean, he was a role model for many, but for, particularly, for scientists in Brazil, and for the growing number of female scientists, from your experience, Angela, what ways are diversity critical for both scientific research and leadership? You already commented at length, but maybe you could expand it a little more.

Angela Olinto  26:27  
Sure. It's crucial, right? So the answer is yes. I think a diverse set of minds and experiences working together in science accelerates the development of new knowledge. And that is such a sort of accelerator that one can do projects in science without diversity. But if you include a diverse set of minds, it goes a lot faster. And in, you know, we see that in international collaborations with folks coming from all over the world with very different cultures, religions, and but I think the gender, race and background is also very relevant and finding different ways to look at a problem. And you know, just the richness of brilliant scientists born everywhere, with all kinds of backgrounds is still surprising, it does take umm folks that don't have a background say, the parents never went to college, for example, it's a lot steeper. And for women, it was a lot steeper, I hope it's a little less, but it's still a steep rise. And that means that for those in particular, for the more diverse folks, we need to do a little bit more sometimes. But on the other hand, that makes us I think, a little more resilient, because, you know, it wasn't easy, right? So you got to some point for a lot more work sometimes. So it's harder to give it up and, and say, Ah, you know, I don't really need this and just walk out, right, so so I think we end up a resilient bunch, those who survive, but I'm hoping in the future, we don't have to be as resilient and get to the creative part and the contributing part without so much more. But, but there are aspects of being a minority that can be helpful. So and you know, in some areas, it's obvious that, you know, that, for example, let's take women being more and more common when I was around, these were very, very 3%. Now we are depending on who it is, but you know, 20 to 30%, women are some of my areas of science. And that changes quite a bit the environment, the way we even do collaborations, there is a change in the structure by having different views of how things can be run. And in science itself, you know, in the physical sciences, it's harder to prove the theorem that if it weren't for women, you wouldn't have this result. But in the biological sciences, pretty easy that you know, many, many ideas and treatments, for example, were designed based on the male body being the normal way to go. And it turns out that you know, we have differences and most of us know that but the scientists didn't seem to have noticed that for a while. So I think that there's obvious results in areas that involve human humans but even without the humans there's an aspect if you look at the historic women that were doing incredible work so you know, we know a list of wonderful names starting you know, Mel de Vie all the way to Vera Rubin and Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who did amazing things at different times in history, and they were often looking in places that others were not doing So you know, it doesn't guarantee that you're going to find something there. But it does make you a little less, you know, separate from the pack from time to time. And that can be negative and isolating, but also creative and new. So if you hit a home run, so I think, you know, that aspect balances the way that the impact of diversity in the sciences, but I think it's crucial. But as we all know, there's a long way to go. And I'm hoping that with my own life, and all the ones around me that we can help, because, you know, humans have a lot of important questions to answer both about the universe, but about how the planet itself and how humankind will, you know, be able to thrive in with the difficulties we have, right? I think Juan mentioned how sustainability, climate and an equality, there's so many questions that we need, all the brave, brilliant minds to solve. So I hope we continue to push that boundary.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  31:04  
Right. So you could mention some advice for someone interested in a career of particle physics.

Angela Olinto  31:19  
So I think, you know, the, the wonderful aspects of science in general and Astro particle physics in particular, are, I think it's like music in the sense that everybody should enjoy it, even if you don't do that for a living. So I wish more and more folks and I think it's changing quite a bit to get interested because it is interesting work. It's interesting knowledge about the universe. And there are many interesting ways to live a fulfilling life. That's not that includes the sciences that we work on, but they're not inside the academia. But certainly, the academy for me is very special place, and I hope it will survive, it has survived hundreds of years, and we're going to work very hard to keep it as strongest as possible, since the the academies is designed to create and preserve knowledge of ourselves or civilizations and of nature, or the capital. And so if you do choose that way, I think, you know, it takes I would say, enthusiasm for the great ideas that you can go back to and recharge because you're going to run into many challenges and disruption. So that's probably true to any career one picks but you know, remembering why this was so exciting Why was this so attractive when you join the the Academy, as a undergraduate, graduate, student, postdoc, and so forth, or you know, junior faculty, it's, it's nice to revisit the fundamentals and be in awe, again, of how this works, how physics is so brilliant, and astrophysics, and astronomy and all the other areas, I would say be flexible, you know, rethink strategies to reach your goals, because you're going to run into, you know, this, this wonderful goal of yours does didn't quite work out. So let's see what you can recover and do something else. And you know, we just did this with POEMMA mission, we wanted to get to the background emission of neutrinos, and that's way too low for us to read. So instead, we're going to be looking for gravitational waves and looking for the prediction production of neutrinos and gravitational waves. So, you know, using the same study to do another science, which is quite relevant is something that is worth adapting in ways. And then two more suggestions. One is to cherish great friends like Joao, has been, you know, it's so nice to be able to share all these decades of and look back, which we did just for this, this event, which is lovely. And, and also keep a very good sense of humor. That really helps. Because, you know, there's always something funny about an awkward situation.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  34:07  
So great friendship and sense of humor. I'm sure we both have. And we know it's important international collaborations, we are talking about this. So what, how about any advice for any early career academics in the audience that are trying to build new international collaboration?

Angela Olinto  34:40  
Yeah, so you probably want to inherit as much as possible from those before you, right. So, you know, in In my case, you know, we had a large collaboration for DOJ some of those members went into the user collaboration and others didn't, which is fine because it was a lot bigger than we needed to get And the project going and then the rest of the collaboration I have today I built based on that what we needed, right, so we need somebody that can do a shank off camera that takes, you know, 100 million pics pictures a second, there are too many people out there that can do that. And that, you know, two items, they this amazing fast cameras that can also be working on a balloon, which is you know, you don't plug them into the wall. And so by asking which things we want to do, we had to find the people that we didn't have in the team to be able to deliver the full story, right? So So then, you know, you go and try to twist some arms or have a very nice chat about why is what you're planning the most exciting thing they could be doing with their time. And, and that's the fun part, right? Because you better convince folks that this is worth their time for the very, you know, rare folks. And then there's, you know, students and undergraduates even that can be involved. So you have a lot of things that most people that have, you know, the back the minimum background can do, but there are these special folks that you need to, to get going. Another thing is, you know, there is a lot of knowledge in management and project management and and, you know, NASA projects. And so to me, I had to do a very fast learn of billions of acronyms which are very different than the accurate names in NSF and DOE. And I keep forgetting the previous ones, but but these things are necessary to speak the same language and to talk to the right engineers, and so forth. So there is homework in their own name, which you know, if you enjoy learning, it's a learning path to be able to reorganize your your strategy. But there are large projects, right, if we think of the LLC and all the projects around it, that they have very well defined structures and sort of a nicer easier pathway to get to make a contribution. Because you know, it's such a large group that it needs to be thought it is well thought it's not improvised, like what I'm doing. To some extent, we are still small enough to to call everybody by first name and know where everybody is. So it depends on the size.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  37:20  
Okay, so now was the time remaining. I would like to transition to the audience question and answer session. As a reminder, you can submit your questions using the question and answer function at the bottom of your screen. Okay, so I have the first question. What are your colleagues who may not see why the work is justified, How do you explain what the benefits of international collaboration are?

Angela Olinto  38:04  
So right now, it's pretty easy to know because some countries closed down and others open. And we tried to be able to get at least you know, what, whichever countries are open during the pandemic, to keep moving their own things. But I think there are some, some of it is basically what I mentioned before, which is the technologies that exist in some part. So as an example, my own project, the photodetectors, for the 1 million pictures a second camera are done in actually both detectors are done in Japan. And our Japanese collaborators are very good are also to do the lenses. We have the Czech Republic collaborators doing the mirrors, we have the French and Italians integrating the cameras of the sort of slower camera, which is a microsecond scale. And we have the American Georgia Tech group, integrating the faster camera. And so each of these pieces, these, these groups have very long traditions of doing what they're doing. And then you know, we put everything together in the US, we test it with NASA, and then ship it over to New Zealand. So we need New Zealand because that's the best place to launch a balloon. That's a pretty easy argument because they are situated in a way that we can be flying over ocean and not cross over people's countries and have issues with diplomacy. For example, our Consul General would know that it might be hard for NASA to fly balloons over Russia, for example. They might not enjoy especially with these fast cameras. So we're not looking for human activity we're looking for you know cosmic activity but you know, it would be hard to explain, then, you know, we do need some some country needs to kind of own the project. So it's hard to Say it's, you know, a half and a half or a third a third of their there has to be some bi some sort of basic funding and structure, but then additions but more and more, I think everything well I like to see is that, you know, or cern is a beautiful example of the whole world contributing. And one of the reasons there is because there's just not enough money in a given country to do all that can be done when you bring all those countries together. But I think expertise, also ability to train different groups, right? So we're talking, there's a lot of science in Brazil, that it's done in a smaller scale, because it's, you know, hard to find very large projects. But if you are attached to another large project as a group, as opposed to being the, you know, responsible 100%, for the whole detector on LEC, for example, which is way too much money, then you can get the science without the cost. But, you know, Brazil has, for example, I'm thinking GMT, the Giant Magellan Telescope is something that we are partnering the University of Chicago and the state of Sao Paolo, as you know, it's it's not a cheap project, it's an expensive project, it is the next frontier in astronomy. So I think there are many of Brazilians and international folks that were able to make that argument. But it is, you know, depends on who the audience is. But you want to do both the background to know which team is really the right team for accomplishing the science we want, and be able to explain to everybody, including funding agencies and the public at large, which is sort of how the agencies get funded, at least in some countries, through Congress in the US. So having outreach as part of the projects are, especially expensive projects is really crucial to get that connection. So. So I think you know, that it's a very project dependent question, but I think most of the projects that we do at the frontier these days in our field, are very international.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  42:05  
Yeah, I used to joke saying that our projects are like, Babel towers from the Bible, that works, okay. Everyone speaking their own language, the thing moves I had,

Angela Olinto  42:18  
yes, I have, I have one little story one time I was, you know, having collaboration meeting and I'm talking to all the PIs of the different countries, and then I'm trying to figure out which ones kiss on the cheek, which ones shake hands. And so I'm going through this whole sequence, you know, who is Italian, who is, and the French and Italian different directions of kissing, so women have yet another layer of complexity, while some men also do men and men kissing But anyway, so you have to figure out how to say hello to everybody. And then I got to the Japanese and you know bowed and then I got to one person from Algeria, and I didn't know what to do. So I said, you know, what do we do in Algeria? And he said, We don't touch. I'm like, okay, no touching. So no shaking hands and bowing from faraway, right. Because anyway, so you have to go with the flow. 

João R.T. de Mello Neto  43:08  
Yeah, you know that we have some stories about that. But okay, so the second question, as a woman in science, and as a leader, who did you look to as a role model? Did anyone inspire you?

Angela Olinto  43:26  
I think, certainly all the historic women inspire me right there. And also my colleagues and teachers that are female, I think just seeing folks doing it is so reassuring. And also, sometimes my students and undergraduates, when you see Wow, look at what she's saying, and how fast she's learning everything. So I think it's it's always reassuring, and when you grow up not being convinced, I mean, because the environment doesn't convince you that you're exactly the right person for the job. Those things keep, keep reminding you and so lots of historic, at one point, I was editor of a book for I think middle school, or maybe high school about women in science. So I was basically, you know, checking on the science and it was lovely to read all these stories. I knew some of them, but not all. So when you're down, go look up some story of a brilliant woman from the past. They usually have a little tragedy, and they're not the easiest, simple lives, but you know, but they they're definitely encouraging.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  44:31  
Sure. Another question, how does University of Chicago help international students?

Angela Olinto  44:39  
Wow, that's a good question. So 50% of our graduate students are international and this is in the physical sciences. So we have, you know, we're very aware that to get our science done at the university in the physical and mathematical sciences, we need to be very aware of the Internationals Students, the undergraduates also so it's at the University of Chicago is not obvious to most people. But the divisions are responsible for science and the graduate school, so masters and PhDs, students, so I don't actually get involved in the undergraduate recruitment side, we do teach the undergraduates but there's a whole other college staff and administration and Dean, who worries about that. And I think we are more and more international. And I think our track record and international students is quite good. I think we don't hear major complaints. We do you have issues right now. Well, we've had for the last year with the pandemic about getting visas getting into the country, I think, right now we are okay. It's actually easier for graduate students than it is for postdocs. Last time I checked, but it's a moving target. And that's not you know, the university is the whole country, the whole planet having these disruptions but you know, we we are 50% International, so it's it's quite diverse in that sense. And we are very proud of it and very excited about welcoming all countries to the universal problem.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  46:13  
Okay, so we have another one. Could you highlight the ways in which Fermilab has supported your research over your career.

Angela Olinto  46:25  
So, Fermilab was a wonderful place for me as a postdoc and I continue collaborating and participating in discussions with my colleagues at Fermilab many Fermilab scientists of our field are also part time faculty at Chicago. So they do teach some of the students they they do, mentor their thesis work. So there is a very close connection in this astroparticle side. So Fermilab is still a wonderful partner in the sciences. Fermilab was also where I met my husband. So that's always good to stay with me. playing a concert not doing physics. So that's another story. But but actually in the NASA project, we run Fermi lab is supported by DOE and there is the conversation about getting NASA and DOE to do things jointly because DOE has expertise that can definitely help some of our NASA projects. So we are having a conversation but it's not a direct funding line. So in that sense, Fermilab is its own has its own project. So we are fielding are many the many important projects including DUNE, which Joao participates, which is the biggest event in terms of trying to get to neutrinos. In with underground shooting from from the Chicagoland area all the way to South Dakota was quite an ambitious project. And in the cosmic frontier, we have the cosmic microwave background, the next generation and many other projects, dark energy, dark matter, so many questions in the field being pursued by scientists at Fermilab to this date. So there are wonderful partners with us.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  48:11  
I wasn't that dinner in that concert, by the way, you

Angela Olinto  48:15  
were there, too. And then I organized dinner, which is how we got where we are, right? So my little leadership role and dinner organization.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  48:26  
And another one, what are some of the exciting develop developments emerging in your field? in what's next for each of you, in your own research?

Angela Olinto  48:39  
Excellent. So you know, this this century has been quite incredible, right? I mean, we we started the at the end of the previous one, learning about dark energy that made us all much more confused than we were, soo the universe that we had in the late early mid 90s, only had dark matter for us to answer now we have the dark energy to make life more complicated. So that's going to take a little effort, and I'm betting on the future generation helping us out because I don't see a very fast way to solve that problem. But on our neck of the woods a little closer to astroparticle projects that I'm leading, it's been a wonderful ride. So we have the gravitational waves that folks were 50 years to get to actually measure something that I initially thought was gonna be impossible to measure and not only to measure it, but to be able to do astrophysics with it to know to learn new things about black holes, learn new things about neutron stars, you know, all kinds of new phenomena that we can observe and be puzzled about because of the the new window which is what we call multi messengers. So the gravitational wave is a new messenger. neutrinos are the messengers that I'm working hard on and these are a little higher energy than the do neutrinos. But these, we have icecube results which is the closest to you know, discoveries that we have identified. Reno and the astrophysics side, we had previous work already with Nobel Prize recognition on the solar neutrino and the supernova neutrinos, but neutrinos from higher energy that will be able to sort of follow these gravitational waves events and other interesting events. Those are, you know, the leadership right now is with ice cube. They have plans to grow and other projects, I think we will, we will need a lot of projects to be able to do that science well, but no, doing astronomy with neutrinos will be a wonderful thing. And that's where POEMMA and that EUSO-SPB is contributing to so we have one event of a gamma ray and a neutrino that comes from the same place. We have three other possibilities. They look, you know, plausible, but not proven. And but this is because we're starting, you know, the tip of the iceberg and we have a whole iceberg to have fun with in the next decade or two.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  50:54  
Yeah, I could just add that it's a wonderful time to be Astro particle physicist, I'm sure. Okay, so another question. My name is Matheus Brito, I live in a city in the interior of the state of San Paolo, Brazil, I never imagined I could attend University of Chicago event. That's the good thing about the internet. I would like to know from Professor Angela, what is the challenge of doing research in particle astrophysics?

Angela Olinto  51:29  
Wonderful, Hello, Matheus Brito, I, you know, my husband is from the interior of San Paolo, small town too so [speaks Portuguese]  the hello to anybody else from Central Boa Vista And so that the things I just mentioned, you know, gravitational waves, neutrinos, gamma rays all coming from similar systems is going to be the big area for us. I think, if you think of the way we observe the universe, we started with our eyes, Galileo helped our eyes by putting a telescope in between the eyes and the stars and galaxies, the telescopes have gotten very big and very varied all the way from radio astronomy, to gamma ray astronomy. And each of these different ways of observing light from the universe, different types of light, different colors of light, has given us different understandings of what's up there is, you know, out there not up down to anyway, so that's the last century development this century, I think we'll be adding the gravitational waves, neutrinos, even cosmic rays, to some extent, because they also give us a measurement of something we don't understand, well, it's just not the same direction. So we have to do a little trick to be able to understand it. But these are what we call other messengers. And so understanding having the ability to observe enough of them is the big challenge. Because gravitational waves are very hard to detect so hard that I mentioned, Einstein was thinking we'll never do it. And we did, we as a human being not me, in particular. And, you know, getting the neutrinos. Imagine if we can see all neutrino sources in the sky, understand where they're coming from, and get a spectrum for each source. I mean, that's sort of the next goal. And that will be really helpful to understand not only the universe, which is a big deal already, but also how the fundamental nature of particles are, because neutrinos are quite mysterious, we learned that they have these interesting. They, they switch flavors, they change clothes on their way from one type to another. So they start in the sun, as you know, electron neutrino they arrive here is Tao or muon, and then they go back to the electron. So the way they behave is something that is the physics not just the astrophysics, but know that two things together are things that we want to do. So I think there's a lot of questions. So yes, if you're young, please join us there will be a lot of questions for you to answer. For sure. even if you're old.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  54:05  
not only the not only the younger ones, because the next question is, do you believe there is any place in science for middle age and senior citizens? Yeah, how could academia be more inclusive, inclusive in an aging society, and amid rap-rapid technological development?

Angela Olinto  54:28  
Yeah, that's a very good question, which kind of I got into backwards right by saying, oops, oh, people too, including me. So the answer is definitely yes. I mean, there's a lot of progress in what's called citizen science. So if you google citizen science in the US, I imagine other countries call it different things. But I think in the in, in Brazil, I mean, because of the academy story that Juan mentioned, I've been in many, many programs that I have even no idea which parts of Brazil I was in right, I think I've traveled most, most states on zoom meetings, talking to folks at different levels. And so if you look at, you know, the citizen science, one of the examples zooniverse, which in front of me here is actually the other planetarium where people were working on this for, you know, 20 years ago, or a little bit longer. And what we find is that people who are engaged enough, they discover new things. So they're are amateur astronomers discovering things recently, somebody just showed me collision with Jupiter that was found by an amateur astronomer, there's a lot of data. So you know, we are now making all the big telescopes be automated. So they, you know, have catalogs and then they spill out all kinds of images from from the universe up there. And then people can have access to that data and look for interesting things. So now, obviously, you know, if you are cold to jump right in, you might need a little time to, you know, learn which direction is up. So there are some programs and some efforts, outreach efforts to try to bring folks from knowing very little how to do something to a point in which they can contribute. But yes, definitely, that just google citizen scientists zooniverse, or, you know, even Vera Rubin Observatory, I don't think they are ready to release the data yet, but because they're just starting, but they will be in the future. And I think oj is making the data available too. So you know, different types of data, and it takes a little energy to get which ones you're most interested in, but definitely citizens should be at minimum enjoying if not contributing in an active way.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  56:44  
Now, a more general question, how do you think physicists can get involved in climate change issues?

Angela Olinto  56:54  
Oh, yeah, physicists are definitely involved. You know, the climate itself is you know, yours is a humongous physics problem. The geophysicist have physics background and, you know, the whole climate, you know, greenhouse effects and all that is something with chemists and others. So we we are involved not necessarily Astro particle physicists, but certainly physicists in general are. I think tthe - the answer there. You know, our host, Juan de Pablo works on areas that have to do with trying to, you know, improve sustainability and encouragement in groups and different initiatives in that area. I, you know, our astrophysics side, has one connection that is obvious, which is that we studied all kinds of planets to not me in particular, but my colleagues do and astronomy and astrophysics, we discovered so many new planets, another wonderful thing of this new century. And I think that looking at other planets tells you the story, right? If you want to end up like X, Y, or Z planet out there, we need to do something so and how to do it right how to have sustainability in a way that works, right. So that's, again, a question for many scientists, many types of scientists, but physicists, obviously, we have lots of great ideas, but many of them end up in the trash can. So how to test ideas and invest in the right directions to help the climate issue is a very important thing. And certainly, many of my colleagues are involved.

João R.T. de Mello Neto  58:38  
Okay, so we're coming to the end. I thank, everyone for the questions they were very interesting. And I thank you, Angela, for sharing your personal journey and the advice you offered today. I hope everyone found it as interesting as I did. I also would like to thank Consul General Belli for supporting this event. And all of you joining Angela and I today. Thank you very much.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai