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Toni Feder
Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil. Credit: IF/THEN® Collection
She navigated barriers in Turkey and the US to become an astronomy professor.
Write an essay on your ideal person. That assignment in middle school set Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil on the path to becoming a scientist. Wondering who the “cleverest person in the world” was, she started reading about Albert Einstein and his science. She became especially interested in astronomy.
That interest took Mutlu-Pakdil from Istanbul, Turkey, where she grew up, to the country’s capital city of Ankara for her bachelor’s degree. She earned her PhD from the University of Minnesota in 2017. An unusual galaxy she studied as a PhD student is informally named after her. Today she is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College. An observational astronomer, she studies tiny, faint dwarf galaxies; she hopes they will reveal secrets about dark matter.
In 2018 Mutlu-Pakdil was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World, a program run by the nonprofit, nongovernmental organization Junior Chamber International. The following year she was named an IF/THEN Ambassador, as part of a program created by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Lyda Hill Philanthropies to inspire women to pursue STEM fields.
PT: Describe your education.
MUTLU-PAKDIL: In Turkey, universities accept you based on your performance on an exam at the end of high school. Physics doesn’t require as high a score on the exam as medicine or engineering. My score was high enough to go into medicine or engineering, but I wanted to study physics. Unfortunately, when you get a physics degree in Turkey, people think you will become only a teacher, not a scientist.
I chose Bilkent University because at the time it was the best research institution and had the highest-ranking physics program in Turkey. The university is in Ankara, about a six-hour drive from Istanbul. Some people criticized my family, saying that “girls shouldn’t live by themselves.”
But growing up, my sister and I had always heard our father’s stories about not getting an education beyond fifth grade due to financial issues. That motivated us. He kept saying, “To do good things in society, you need an education. To have a role in society, you need to get an education.” So when I wanted to go to college and said I would leave my hometown, my parents were super supportive.
PT: Why did you come to the US for graduate studies?
MUTLU-PAKDIL: When I went to college, I decided to practice hijab. At the time in Turkey, the law was that you cannot wear hijab in any public institution, including universities.
There were 4 women studying physics out of about 25, and I was the only one practicing hijab. I could wear hijab on campus, but not in the classroom. I used hats and turtlenecks to cover myself. It was a very awkward situation that affected my performance.
Although I enjoyed my classes, I felt like a secondary citizen in my own country. That’s why, in 2009, after I graduated, I wanted to leave Turkey, not only to get a higher education but also to live my true self.
PT: You went to Texas Tech University. Why?
MUTLU-PAKDIL: I knew a person from my college who got into Texas Tech. I thought, I will not be alone. It was the only place I applied. I got in. And then I realized there was no astronomy program. I did a master’s degree in experimental biophysics. I didn’t like it, because I am a bit clumsy. Experimental labs are not my environment.
I still really wanted to do astronomy. During my master’s degree, I learned how American universities work. I finally started a PhD in astronomy at the University of Minnesota.
PT: What was the focus of your studies?
MUTLU-PAKDIL: My PhD research was on scaling relationships between galaxies and their supermassive black holes. After I did my first paper, my adviser asked if I wanted to follow up on an interesting object that he and others had spotted in their survey. They thought maybe it was a second Hoag’s Object—an elliptical galaxy with a blue ring around it. It’s a puzzling object, and we still do not know how it formed, how it became so symmetric, or how the ring structure formed.
Later I discovered that the new object had a second ring hiding in its central bright body. We were having a hard time explaining the outer ring in Hoag’s Object. Now we had an object that had an inner ring with a different color. That made it even harder to explain.
We published a paper about the galaxy, and we made a fun video about it. In the video, we called it Burçin’s Galaxy. It has a catalog number—PGC 1000714—but people started calling it Burçin’s Galaxy.
PT: What are you doing now?
MUTLU-PAKDIL: When I started postdoctoral research, I got really excited about other types of extreme galaxies: small, faint dark matter–dominated galaxies. Cosmological models predict that they must be the most numerous galaxies in the universe. But since they are faint and small, these dwarf galaxies are hard to find, and we have a very limited understanding of their formation.
PT: What makes those galaxies interesting?
MUTLU-PAKDIL: We know that 85% of matter in the universe is dark matter. Dwarf galaxies barely have stars; they barely have gas. They are basically the cleanest laboratories we can find to study dark matter. By counting how many dwarf galaxies are out there and determining how they are distributed in the sky, we can put significant constraints on the nature of dark matter.
PT: What did it mean to you to be named one of Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World?
MUTLU-PAKDIL: I was named an Outstanding Young Person for Turkey after the discovery of Burçin’s Galaxy. I was too busy to go to that ceremony or the ceremony in India for the world award. But my family went in Istanbul and accepted the award for me. You cannot imagine how emotional they got. Professors congratulated my father about me. Seeing my family proud and happy was the most important award I could get.
PT: How did you build up your research group at Dartmouth?
MUTLU-PAKDIL: My group has two postdocs, two graduate students, and four undergraduates. Experience can be acquired, and it’s simpler to teach a technique than to inspire someone to work on something they’re not passionate about. Passion is the key quality I seek in my group members.
PT: Is there anything you’d like to add?
MUTLU-PAKDIL: After the discovery of Burçin’s Galaxy, a friend called me and said, “You are an inspiration for our kids!” Then she said, “How about your husband? Are you reuniting with him?” I had met my husband when I was in the PhD program, and we maintained a long-distance relationship. I said, “No, we will continue long distance.” Then the friend said, “You know, a career is good, but the family is more important. Maybe you should give up your career and go live with him.”
I pointed out that she had just said I was an inspiration for her kids, and now she was saying I should quit. I asked my husband if people tell him that family is more important than his job, that he should quit his job and go to his wife. They don’t. It’s a hypocritical thing that people do only toward women, telling them to value family over career.
Once I came to Dartmouth, my husband joined me. We had thought we would unite after each step. But a postdoc is short, and he didn’t find a job where I was. Unfortunately, this is very common in academia. One time, I remember as a postdoc complaining about being long distance, and then I realized that everyone in the meeting was in the same situation. It’s a big systemic problem.
See the full article here .
Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct.
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“Our mission
The mission of ”Physics Today” is to be a unifying influence for the diverse areas of physics and the physics-related sciences.
It does that in three ways:
• by providing authoritative, engaging coverage of physical science research and its applications without regard to disciplinary boundaries;
• by providing authoritative, engaging coverage of the often complex interactions of the physical sciences with each other and with other spheres of human endeavor; and
• by providing a forum for the exchange of ideas within the scientific community.”
Dartmouth College is a private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution and among the most prestigious in the United States. Although founded to educate Native Americans in Christian theology and the English way of life, the university primarily trained Congregationalist ministers during its early history before it gradually secularized, emerging at the turn of the 20th century from relative obscurity into national prominence.
Following a liberal arts curriculum, Dartmouth provides undergraduate instruction in 40 academic departments and interdisciplinary programs, including 60 majors in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering, and enables students to design specialized concentrations or engage in dual degree programs. In addition to the undergraduate faculty of arts and sciences, Dartmouth has four professional and graduate schools: the Geisel School of Medicine, the Thayer School of Engineering, the Tuck School of Business, and the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies. The university also has affiliations with the Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center. Dartmouth is home to the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences, the Hood Museum of Art, the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, and the Hopkins Center for the Arts. With a student enrollment of about 6,700, Dartmouth is the smallest university in the Ivy League. Undergraduate admissions are highly selective with an acceptance rate of 6.24% for the class of 2026, including a 4.7% rate for regular decision applicants.
Situated on a terrace above the Connecticut River, Dartmouth’s 269-acre (109 ha) main campus is in the rural Upper Valley region of New England. The university functions on a quarter system, operating year-round on four ten-week academic terms. Dartmouth is known for its strong undergraduate focus, Greek culture, and wide array of enduring campus traditions. Its 34 varsity sports teams compete intercollegiately in the Ivy League conference of the NCAA Division I.
Dartmouth is consistently cited as a leading university for undergraduate teaching by U.S. News & World Report. The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education listed Dartmouth as the only majority-undergraduate, arts-and-sciences focused, doctoral university in the country that has “some graduate coexistence” and “very high research activity”.
The university has many prominent alumni, including many members of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. governors, billionaires, U.S. Cabinet secretaries, Nobel Prize laureates, U.S. Supreme Court justices, and a U.S. vice president. Other notable alumni include Rhodes Scholars, Marshall Scholarship recipients, and Pulitzer Prize winners. Dartmouth alumni also include many CEOs and founders of Fortune 500 corporations, high-ranking U.S. diplomats, academic scholars, literary and media figures, professional athletes, and Olympic medalists.
Comprising a small undergraduate population and total student enrollment, Dartmouth is the smallest university in the Ivy League. Its undergraduate program is characterized by the Carnegie Foundation and U.S. News & World Report as “most selective”. Dartmouth offers a broad range of academic departments, an extensive research enterprise, numerous community outreach and public service programs, and the highest rate of study abroad participation in the Ivy League.
Dartmouth, a liberal arts institution, offers a four-year Bachelor of Arts and ABET-accredited Bachelor of Engineering degree to undergraduate students. The college has 39 academic departments offering 56 major programs, while students are free to design special majors or engage in dual majors. The most popular majors: economics, government, computer science, engineering sciences, and history. The Economics Department also holds the distinction as the top-ranked bachelor’s-only economics program in the world.
In order to graduate, a student must complete 35 total courses, eight to ten of which are typically part of a chosen major program. Other requirements for graduation include the completion of ten “distributive requirements” in a variety of academic fields, proficiency in a foreign language, and completion of a writing class and first-year seminar in writing. Many departments offer honors programs requiring students seeking that distinction to engage in “independent, sustained work”, culminating in the production of a thesis. In addition to the courses offered in Hanover, Dartmouth offers 57 different off-campus programs, including Foreign Study Programs, Language Study Abroad programs, and Exchange Programs.
Through the Graduate Studies program, Dartmouth grants doctorate and master’s degrees in 19 Arts & Sciences graduate programs. Although the first graduate degree, a PhD in classics, was awarded in 1885, many of the current PhD programs have only existed since the 1960s. Furthermore, Dartmouth is home to three professional schools: the Geisel School of Medicine (established 1797), Thayer School of Engineering (1867)—which also serves as the undergraduate department of engineering sciences—and Tuck School of Business (1900). With these professional schools and graduate programs, conventional American usage would accord Dartmouth the label of “Dartmouth University”; however, because of historical and nostalgic reasons (such as Dartmouth College v. Woodward), the school uses the name “Dartmouth College” to refer to the entire institution.
Dartmouth employs a large number of tenured or tenure-track faculty members, including the highest proportion of female tenured professors among the Ivy League universities, and the first black woman tenure-track faculty member in computer science at an Ivy League university. Faculty members have been at the forefront of such major academic developments as the Dartmouth Workshop, the Dartmouth Time Sharing System, Dartmouth BASIC, and Dartmouth ALGOL 30. Sponsored project awards to Dartmouth faculty research amount to $200 million.
Dartmouth serves as the host institution of the University Press of New England, a university press founded in 1970 that is supported by a consortium of schools that also includes Brandeis University, The University of New Hampshire, Northeastern University, Tufts University and The University of Vermont.
Rankings
Dartmouth ranks very highly among undergraduate programs at national universities by U.S. News & World Report. U.S. News also ranks the school very highly for veterans, very highly for undergraduate teaching, and for “best value” at national universities. Dartmouth’s undergraduate teaching was ranked very highly by U.S. News. Dartmouth College is accredited by The New England Commission of Higher Education.
In Forbes’ rankings of 650 universities, liberal arts colleges and service academies, Dartmouth ranks very highly overall and in research universities. In the Forbes “grateful graduate” rankings, Dartmouth comes very highly.
The Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked Dartmouth very highly among the best universities in the nation. However, this specific ranking has drawn criticism from scholars for not adequately adjusting for the size of an institution, which leads to larger institutions ranking above smaller ones like Dartmouth. Dartmouth’s small size and its undergraduate focus also disadvantage its ranking in other international rankings because ranking formulas favor institutions with a large number of graduate students.
The Carnegie Foundation classification listed Dartmouth as the only “majority-undergraduate”, “arts-and-sciences focus[ed]”, “research university” in the country that also had “some graduate coexistence” and “very high research activity”.
The Dartmouth Plan
Dartmouth functions on a quarter system, operating year-round on four ten-week academic terms. The Dartmouth Plan (or simply “D-Plan”) is an academic scheduling system that permits the customization of each student’s academic year. All undergraduates are required to be in residence for the fall, winter, and spring terms of their freshman and senior years, as well as the summer term of their sophomore year. However, students may petition to alter this plan so that they may be off during their freshman, senior, or sophomore summer terms. During all terms, students are permitted to choose between studying on-campus, studying at an off-campus program, or taking a term off for vacation, outside internships, or research projects. The typical course load is three classes per term, and students will generally enroll in classes for 12 total terms over the course of their academic career.
The D-Plan was instituted in the early 1970s at the same time that Dartmouth began accepting female undergraduates. It was initially devised as a plan to increase the enrollment without enlarging campus accommodations, and has been described as “a way to put 4,000 students into 3,000 beds”. Although new dormitories have been built since, the number of students has also increased and the D-Plan remains in effect. It was modified in the 1980s in an attempt to reduce the problems of lack of social and academic continuity.