Profile of UBC’s Ingrid Stairs

The Academic: Ingrid Stairs, Radio Astronomer

Smiling and soft-spoken, Ingrid Stairs is passionate about stars. Her speciality, neutron stars, are the leftovers from supernova explosions. Roughly one-and-a-half times the mass of the sun, these stars are compressed into spheres about one-quarter the size of Vancouver. They also spin very fast – up to 700 times a second. The combination of small size, huge mass and fast rotation makes for an extreme environment full of powerful magnetic fields and gravitational forces.

Stairs uses big telescopes in West Virginia, Puerto Rico, and Australia to track signals given off by neutron stars (which are also called pulsars after the bursts of radiation detectable from Earth). Looking at specific stars over years, she can understand many different aspects of the physics involved. “That’s some of the reason that I got into the field in the first place,” she says. “I can do one type of observation and have access to a whole range of physics through the same type of data. So that’s really appealing.”

Luckily, it’s no longer necessary to travel to a telescope in order to do observations. Many facilities now use remote software and onsite support staff, so that Stairs can log-in from her office or home computer. Otherwise, doing frequent observations would be financially prohibitive. That said, when a number of observations are scheduled close together, Stairs makes the trip and takes the opportunity to meet up with collaborators.

Identified just over 40 years ago, pulsars are relatively new study subjects. Many of them are in orbit with other stars, making their physics both complicated and intriguing. Stairs is enthusiastic about the challenge. “We keep finding new things. Every time we look at something with more sensitivity and new instruments and so on, you find new things. So we’re not bored yet.”

Some stars offer the chance to test general relativity. If two pulsars orbit each other in a binary system and both are moving very quickly (with orbits around eight to ten hours) relativistic effects become very important to their movements. Stairs uses the theory of relativity to predict basic orbit properties. Comparing these predictions across several parameters of pulsar data provides sufficient information to check that the theory of relativity is completely self-consistent.

It’s an exciting time for radio astronomy, as instruments become better at detecting signals. Large-scale searches are underway to find new pulsars. These unusual stars offer a view of star dynamics and physical processes in the universe. Stairs is excited about the long-term potential.

The Avocation: Choral Singing

Coming from a musical family, Stairs played the piano from age seven until university. She also sang in her elementary school choir, moving on to adult versions like the McGill Choral Society and Princeton Chapel Choir. After moving to Vancouver, Stairs joined UBC’s Choral Union to get her voice into shape and then auditioned for the Vancouver Bach Choir in 2004.

Stairs finds singing in a group thoroughly invigorating. The connections between science and music are well-established, and while both require careful thought, music and science stimulate the brain in different ways. “It’s challenging,” she says. “It gives you a chance to refocus your brain or think about the world in a different way for a little while. It helps everything in the long run.”

Joining the Vancouver Bach Choir requires a serious commitment. With 150 members coming from diverse work backgrounds, the choir rehearses two and a half hours each week. Additional rehearsals are required before performances, which are often in concert with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as well as prominent soloists and other guest performers. The choir offers a chance for singers to tackle major classical pieces. “We’re all there because we want to sing that repertoire,” Stairs says. In the past several years works have ranged from the old – Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s St. John Passion – to the newer – Mahler’s 8th Symphony and Elgar’s War Requiem.

Stairs is an alto, singing alongside other UBC faculty members and staff including Trish Schulte, a zoologist, and endocrinologist Jerilynn Prior. “Singing alto is a good challenge. It’s more interesting than just having the melody all the time,” she says. Members must re-audition every three years, allowing the conductor to re-evaluate individual vocal ranges and quality. But with a new conductor coming in next season, auditions for all will be required, and choir members are steeling themselves for the process. A change of leadership also offers the potential for unfamiliar choral works. Stairs is just hoping to make the cut and continue carving out the time to sing with gusto.

UBC’s Alumni Magazine Trek Summer 2010, p 23-24