DrNasa.se

Research and Life in Tokyo

Photo: Me and my trusted D700

Who Am I?

My name is Oscar Larsson and I'm a scientist currently employed at the RIKEN institute in Wako-shi, Saitama. Originally I come from Sweden, but I spent five of my years growing up in London. In addition, during my undergraduate studies, I lived in Luleå and Kiruna, in the very northern part of Sweden. However, according to the Swedish post office this is to be considered Finland. So not completely sure in which countries I've lived. Although I do know that I'm currently living in Japan.

Here in Japan I will work on a research project called JEM-EUSO, which is an acronym for Extreme Universe Space Observatory on the Japanese Experimental Module. Which basically is a telescope which hopefully will be fitted on the International Space Station and will give us

the answers to many questions regarding the universe and basic physics. Much much cooler than the LHC at CERN, because it's in space.

One of my major interests is photography and I hope to be able to share some of my work here, on this page, with you along with a lot of other stuff as well.

Please feel free to contact me via email or by commenting on my blog.

Cheers!

Why "Dr Nasa"

It's a two part story;

First of I have a PhD in Physics from KTH The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. The title of my thesis is too long to mention here so if anyone actually is interested the ISBN is 978-91-7595-178-2. Come to think of it, the ISBN number is probably more interesting than the title it self...

The topic of my thesis was the radiation environment which the astronauts are exposed to on board the International Space Station.

The "Nasa" part comes from when I started my undergraduate at Luleå University of Technology (LTU). I had been accepted to the Master of Science in Space engineering program and during the hazing* of the new students I had on some occasions worn a sweatshirt with the NASA "worm" logo (used 75-92). So I quickly became "The guy with the Nasa shirt" (obviously much easier to remember than my name, Oscar...). This rather long nickname was quickly shortened down to just Nasa. And the legend was born...

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* The hazing at LTU is a very civilised and much appreciated (by the haziese(?)) period of 12 days prior to the start of the first semester. During these days the new students are introduced to the campus, urged to make new friends, and most importantley of all, have great fun.