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| Wanda Diaz Merced next to the Solar System Radio Explorer Kiosk, which allows users to learn about solar radio waves through hearing and touch. (Credit: William S. Leibman) |
Today’s guest blogger is Wanda Diaz Merced. Wanda is a space scientist who lost her sight when she was a student studying physics at the University of Puerto Rico. Rather than give up the subject she loved, Wanda began to investigate techniques for analyzing astronomical signals using sound rather than visual information.
In the year 1999, an advisor told me to ponder changing careers. At the same time, noticing that I could no longer identify the location of obvious items in my house, a friend advised me to take control of my health, visit the rethynologist, and learn orientation and mobility. I could identify certain things while the sun was transiting my sky, but during the night I was completely blind. I kept the white cane hidden inside my backpack. When walking on campus during the night, I would close it quickly on arrival at the physics department. How would I do physics if I could not see the charts?
It is my personal belief that space scientists love to explore the unknown. It is really encouraging to witness them constantly polishing their intuition to explore signals and recognize patterns. They may even reach a point where those events are easily identified and interpreted. Their tasks are complex, necessitating a readiness to respond to items that may be ambiguous and of high uncertainty in presentation, as well as involving the presence or absence of background signals and visual noise. A constant mental effort and alertness to respond to infrequent changes in data display are essential to the completion of such tasks. As good explorers, they are always vigilant when performing their duties (Matthews Davies, Westerman & Stammers 2000; Washburn, Taglialatela, Rice & Smith 2004).
