Using what he calls "radio eyes," David Meier has drawn chemical maps of the great clouds of gas that drift through five galaxies far from our own Milky Way, hoping to explain what causes large bursts of star-making activity. These maps are part of his UCLA dissertation.

Astronomers agree that molecular hydrogen is the fuel for star building, but unfortunately, hydrogen "is invisible in the cold environment of space," David says. Instead, he looked at other "tracer" molecules that tend to appear with hydrogen: carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and methyl alcohol.

These chemical molecules have spectral fingerprints that can be recognized at great distances using radio eyes: arrays of dishes that receive radio emissions from distant places and the technology that turns those emissions into data and images. "I think of myself as a chemist," says David. "The only thing is my test tube is 10 million light years away."

David found three items of interest. First, the molecular gases in these five galaxies were different-denser and warmer-than the gases in the Milky Way. "Star bursts occur only in the densest gas," David says. "You need to pile a lot of gas into a very small space to get these dramatic events." He speculates that the structure of the galaxies may contribute to the locations of dense gas, with the compression occurring when two gas clouds collide

Second, David examined a variety of tracer molecules, not just the carbon monoxide that most scientists had studied previously. His calculations indicate that much less hydrogen is required to produce star making than previous research suggested. And finally, he found "the first clear evidence that the chemistry of these gas clouds varies dramatically-and varies with the amount of star formation," he says.

While he was preparing his dissertation at UCLA, David's radio eyes were the Owens Valley array, which is particularly good at seeing "faint things that are small." Now, as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, he's looking through another set of eyes, the BIMA (Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland-Association) array, which is designed to see "brighter objects that are more widespread."

Plans are afoot to combine the two arrays: "They're going to become one set of eyes," David says, "and I could be a part of that combination." Meantime, he has an opportunity to extend his study of molecular gases to other galaxies better seen through BIMA's eyes. He'll also be working with BIMA's Illinois director, Dr. Lewis Snyder, who is looking for prebiotic molecules in interstellar space. One of his research questions: Were the constituent molecules that make up human bodies created in space and brought here, perhaps by comets?

Nowadays, David is looking through technologically advanced eyes-that weren't available even 10 years ago. But he saw his first galaxy, Andromeda, with six-year-old human eyes, lying in the backyard of his San Marino home with his parents and siblings and looking up at the night sky-a family event that happened a couple of times a month, "probably because they knew I enjoyed it."

Nowadays, David is looking through technologically advanced eyes-that weren't available even 10 years ago. But he saw his first galaxy, Andromeda, with six-year-old human eyes, lying in the backyard of his San Marino home with his parents and siblings and looking up at the night sky-a family event that happened a couple of times a month, "probably because they knew I enjoyed it."

Although he was young, David had already decided he wanted to be an astronomer. Through grade school and high school, he settled for amateur status: "I had my little telescope and I'd go out to the desert and look around; I read books." By the time he left high school, he knew that he could do the math and science required of a professional astronomer.

David chose Cal State Los Angeles for his undergraduate career, majoring in physics. "It was affordable, and we were not a particularly rich family," he says. Also, he "wanted to go to a place that would have an excellent teaching environment."

In sophomore year, when he was tempted by a scholarship to transfer to USC, Cal State's Associate Professor of Physics Milan B. Mijic persuaded him to stay. "He took me under his wing and helped me to learn the field," David says. He also provided a role model for David's chosen career: to be a good astronomy teacher.

When David was ready for graduate studies, Professor Mijic helped him decide where to go. By then, that first vision of Andromeda had blossomed into a scholarly fascination: "These galaxies were so beautiful-they looked like big old whirlpools. I wanted to learn how they evolved through the history of the universe."

David had often dreamed of going to UCLA, and it turned out UCLA was a great place to study galaxies. He ended up working with Jean Turner, Professor of Physics and Astronomy and one of the world's experts on the far-away galaxies David has studied. "She treated me like a colleague, rather than a student, from the moment I started working with her," David says. "While giving me valuable insights, she let me pick what I wanted to do. As a result, I was able, even as a graduate student, to feel like I was doing independent research of my own that had direct impact on the astronomical world. I wasn't just part of some big project."

Professor Turner also persuaded him to delay taking a teaching job-that's still his goal-to do a postdoctoral fellowship. Following the completion of his dissertation in February, he immediately began his postdoctoral fellowship. The University of Illinois has "given me a chance to extend this work into a subfield, astrochemistry of external galaxies, something that has largely never been done," he says. "So I'm going to run with the opportunity and see what comes of it."

Published in Spring 2002, Graduate Quarterly