Planetary Conference in Quy Nhon, Vietnam and What I learned from here

During the summer, I had a chance to participate in a planetary conference in Quy Nhon, Vietnam as it is my first conference participating as a speaker to talk about my research works. Previously, I had been to few different conferences, including ICIST at KAIST as a delegated speaker, APRIM in Chiang Mai as a liaison to help organize the conference, and an upcoming Asian Science Camp (ASC) as a liaison for leaders. Being the first time, there are so many things that I have no idea about, such as cloth for the conference (it seems like I am way overdressed for this summer conference - I guess it is better to be overdressed than underdressed). Of course, I also mange to find some time to travel in Ho Chi Minh before going to the conference. 

The conference is at a private conference hall next to the beach and far from everything else. The location is awesome as it is in the middle of nowhere and everyone at the conference is forced o to meet each other more than other conferences. The building is created only to support scientific conferences. This creates some problems regarding having enough conference and events to be self-sustained without other supports. Either more business conferences or having private investors are necessary for sustaining the building.  

ICISE, the venue for the planetary conference

The conference is the combination of both planetary science and exoplanet. These talks are very fascinating for me as I had so little knowledge about planetary science, including planets like Mars and Pluto or their moons like Titans. I learned even more during the talk from exoplanet people as I get a better understanding and appreciation for the topic as they have to explain their specialty to people from other fields. In terms of my talk, I gave the same talk as I gave previously at the UChicago-Northwestern workshop at Alder Planetarium, Chicago on the topic of "Transiting Exoplanet: Long vs Short Cadence." I think the talk went fairly well as I got couple questions from the audiences and some more discussion about future telescope projects.

Excursion at the museum nearby

During Wednesday afternoon, we have some excursion at the museum about the local king during the 18th century and some Khmer towers. The excursion is interesting and it is a good way to take a break from sitting and listening to all the talks.

At this conference, I also met another Thai girl (Kat) who is also working on the transiting exoplanet project, which is similar to my project. From her, I learned a lot about the Astrophysics situation in Thailand, especially in Chiang Mai university and NARIT. It made me realize how important it is for me to continue visiting Chiang Mai and learn about astronomy research situation in Thailand as I rarely know anything about it.

Another fascinating thing about this place is how dark the sky becomes even when we are staying in the center of the city. It is so dark that we can take a photo with a Milky Way galaxy on the roof of the hotel. This also makes me realize how lucky/fortunate I am to be able to study and try to understand these objects in the universe as a career.

Quy Nhon Beach next to Seagull Hotel in the city

Me with a Milky Way galaxy on the roof of our hotel

For the last talk, Jonathan Lunine gave a great presentation about the difference between planetary scientists and exoplanet astronomers as a conclusion for the conference. He also opens for discussion at the end of his talk about the conference and the supports of astronomy in Vietnam. I found this last discussion so interesting. We talked about the how we can improve the conference, especially toward more Vietnamese scientists around the area. There are many options that we can improve the research situation, such as creating more scientific schools about these research topics and some research internship abroad so that they learn more skills necessary for the research which they will be able to continue working when they get back. These discussions get me more excited for many possibility for me as a Thai scientist to help developing a good research program to support young scientists to work in astrophysics.