3 minute read
Young scientist has her eyes firmly fixed on the stars
PROFESSOR ROY MAARTENS, who worked closely with Thomas, said at the time that she “leaves no stone unturned in understanding the material. She doesn’t take shortcuts towards achieving her goals and she will no doubt leave this meeting [Lindau] even better prepared to make an impact in the field.” Thomas says the six-day Nobel Meeting was an uplifting experience.
“Being surrounded by 40 Nobel laureates as well as hundreds of the brightest young minds in physics is incredibly intimidating. It was an honour to get to listen to the laureates talk about their journeys and research leading up to their awards,” she says.
“The highlight for me was definitely getting to meet and know some of the other young scientists. This was particularly important because these young scientists will be leaders in their respective fields in 10 years’ time, and these are the people that one is more likely to collaborate with, now and in future.”
Thomas has also visited other places on her academic journey, including the United Kingdom where her PhD supervisor lives.
“I’ve been very fortunate to travel to various cities all over the world. International conferences occur often and are important to attend to share and discuss one’s research and to network and make collaborations for future work,” says Thomas.
Thomas says she always knew she wanted to be a physicist.
“I was always interested in how things work and more specifi cally why things work. From a ball falling to why there are clouds in the sky. I always wondered about things further than what I was able to comprehend at the time,” she says.
“If I had an object that I could cut in half, and then in half again, and again, and again, how much more could I keep cutting it and how small could it get? I wondered about what were beyond the stars, why there appeared to be nothing between them and was frankly upset that we couldn’t see much further than 13 billion light years away,” she says.
By the time she matriculated from Kasselsvlei High School in Bellville South, she had already decided to study physics at UWC.
“Astrophysics blew my mind. I considered it to be one of the most thought-provoking fi elds with so many unanswered questions that I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. I knew that I wanted to answer these questions and to unravel the puzzles the universe poses,” she says.
After her undergraduate studies, she completed the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme (NASSP) at the University of Cape Town, before returning to UWC to do her master’s and now her PhD.
“Other than travelling to many different places, I consider some of the latest research I’ve been able to publish a significant highlight. I would generally like to stay in academia and continue doing research,” says Thomas. “There are so many big questions that always spark interest and now, in the era of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), is the perfect time to ask them.
Nicole (middle row, second from right) with the rest of the South African cohort at the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany in 2019.
“What is dark energy, this strange invisible force pushing everything in our universe away from each other? What about the other equally mysterious dark matter that keeps large-scale structures together? How can something as physically small as a supermassive black hole in the centre of a galaxy be so powerful that it affects entire galaxies? And how did these supermassive black holes form and grow so quickly in the first place?
“It’s about wanting to understand the nature of our universe, why and how we’ve made it to this point in time. Some astronomers go out and use telescopes as part of their research, many use the data that come from these telescopes, while others, including myself, make and use models and simulations of the objects they’re interested in studying,” she says.
With so many questions and methodologies to explore, any one of which could easily occupy an entire career, Thomas is certainly spoilt for choice and unlikely to lose her passion for her chosen fi eld.
