"During my junior year in high school I built a reflecting telescope with mount and drive made of parts salvaged from a junkyard."

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Tom Barber

Born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1943
B.A. Physics

Vanderbilt University , Nashville, Tennessee, 1965

Post graduate studies in Low Temperature Physics

University of Georgia, Athens Georgia, 1965-70

Postdoc Superconducting Power Transmission Project

Brookhaven National Lab, Long Island, New York, 1974-1976

Fields of Work

Physics and Borehole Geophysics

Areas of interest outside work:

Borehole geophysics, astronomy, fossil collecting, backpacking and automotive work

I grew up Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA. Sometime in elementary school I developed an interest in science, and physics and astronomy in particular. During my junior year in high school I built a reflecting telescope with mount and drive made of parts salvaged from a junkyard. A high point was observing a transit of Mercury across the Sun from the front steps of the school.

I started Vanderbilt University with the intent of becoming an astronomer. Of course, the recipe starts out "first, get an undergraduate degree in Physics…". Somewhere along the way I became interested in other areas of physics as well, and started work towards a Ph.D. in low temperature physics at the University of Georgia. After five years, the very poor market for technical graduates in 1970, combined with the tendency to treat graduate students as indentured servants for an excessive length of time, caused me to leave school and take a job with NASA in Huntsville, Alabama. The high point of this employment was starting work on the still-ongoing Relativity Gyro Experiment. In 1974 I took a postdoc appointment (without the doc!) at Brookhaven National Laboratory and worked on the Superconducting Power Transmission Project.

At the conclusion of the Brookhaven appointment, I cast about for permanent employment and answered an ad in the New York Times for Schlumberger Doll Research. I started there in 1976, and transferred to Houston in 1978.

My work in Schlumberger involves computer-modeling of electromagnetic measurements in the earth and relating these measurements to the electrical resistivity of the earth formations surrounding an oil well. I employ signal processing and imaging techniques to give quantitative estimates of hydrocarbons around the well. Our measurements are a fusion of physics with geology, and are aimed at learning as much as possible about the geology of the formation which contains hydrocarbon.

I met my wife Peggy while I was in graduate school. Our son, Charles, was born while we were at Brookhaven. He is now studying physics at the University of New Mexico.

I'm still interested in astronomy, and take my telescope to the countryside whenever I can to get away from the severe light pollution in the Houston metro area. I have used my involvement in Scouting to take my telescope on camping trips and introduce youth to astronomy. I have developed and given several times an "Introduction to Astronomy" short course. This is aimed at middle-school or junior-high school aged youth.