Job:	Post Doctoral Research Assistant, University of Glasgow, UK
Born:	Glasgow, Scotland 1972.

What got you into working on the Sun? When I was 7, I remember being out in my parents' back garden on a very cold night playing in the snow. Some snow was on the washing line and by jumping up and pinging the washing line, I could make the snow fly off and drift down the ground. After doing this for a bit, I looked up and noticed that the whole sky was filled with stars. I stopped and thought about it and remembered being told that each one of those stars was like the Sun - but much, much further away. I was hooked. Eight years later I went to Glasgow University to do Astronomy, which meant doing Physics and Maths too, and after another four years I started working for my PhD on how to predict the number of sunspots... that's how I got where I am.

What do you do when you're not working on the Sun? I like writing and playing music (mainly guitar and singing), and I've been lucky enough to get to play it at concerts and also record some of it. I like all kinds of music, from classical composers like Prokofiev to modern composers like Jerry Goldsmith (writes music for Star Trek and films), and from bands like the Beatles to Blur.When I'm not playing or  listening to music, and if the weather's good, I like walking around on hills. If the weather's bad, you might find me at home playing games on my playstation, or making pictures like this on my computer - have a look at the sunspot adventure pages to get a clue to what this picture's about...

What scientific discovery would make you really excited? Finding life somewhere else in the Universe. Astronomers have found plenty of other stars with planets now, so perhaps we'll find one that's like the Earth soon, and may be it might have some kind of life on it. I would feel a bit lonely if it turned out that all the life in the Universe was just here on Earth.

What do you like and dislike about doing science for a job?

I love finding out new things, even small things, and using my imagination to think up new ways of explaining things that happen, whether it is here on Earth, or on the Sun, or at the other end of the Universe. Doing science also means that you get to travel around the world and meet scientists from other countries - last year I got to go to Tenerife, Australia and the USA. The bad thing is that sometimes you get really stuck and have to work really hard to figure a problem out - this happens a lot when you use computers or have to do Maths. When that happens I can't stop thinking about my work and walk about in a bit of daze - may be that's why scientists have a reputation for being absent-minded and a bit strange. One other good thing is that I get to work at home sometimes, in my wee house (which used to be a school) near Loch Lomond in Scotland. Here's a picture of it under Comet Hale-Bopp.

If you want to find out more about me and what I do have a look at my home page at http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/~conway

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