Gopolang Mohlabeng (he/him)

About me

I was born/grew up in: I was born and raised in Atteridgeville, a township in Pretoria which is one of the two capitals of South Africa.

I now live in:  I live now in Burnaby, British Columbia.

I completed my training/education at: I completed my undergraduate studies at the University of Pretoria and University of Cape Town in South Africa. I completed my Masters and Ph.D at the University of Kansas in the USA.

What I do at work

A day in the life of an assistant professor is quite busy. My day usually starts with teaching a class for an hour. After this I spend time thinking about my research activities. I also have office hours after so that students can ask questions they didn't get a chance to ask in class. When the teaching part is taken care of, I spend my day doing research. This usually involves pen and paper, trying to solve some mathematical equations and interpreting the physics behind them. At other times I may be writing some computer code to solve the more complex equations.

Throughout the day I make decisions on how to best utilize my time and manage all the tasks I have efficiently. I also allot some time to my mentees (students and postdoctoral fellows) who I work with closely on research. As a theorist my work can be done individually, however I do have people I collaborate with on various research projects. One could call them my team; however, they change depending on the topic at hand. The constant team I have are my students and postdocs. I usually interact with colleagues who are not physically close to me via video conference. For my colleagues at my work, we usually have a chat in the corridor or over coffee or by walking into each other's offices. I usually use English at work.

I do research on the smallest building blocks of life and how they affect our entire universe. I build theoretical and computational models of new unknown particles. These models describe how our universe has evolved from when it was born until now. These models are then tested using data coming from experiments on Earth and astrophysical telescopes. This work is important because it helps us understand how the universe, our galaxy, the solar system and eventually us, came to be.

My career path is

When I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be physicist. I just didn't know what kind. I learned there are many kinds of physicists. Some of these are condensed matter physicist, particle physicist, nuclear physicist, astrophysicist, biophysicist, and geophysicist.

When I got to university, I started working on a materials science project. However, I didn't find it challenging enough. I wanted to use my mathematical and analytical skills more. As a result, I moved to the University of Cape Town to do Astrophysics. I found that this area of physics involved a lot of computer programming and data analysis. However, I still was not using my mathematical skills. I then got into particle physics, and I really enjoyed it. It feels like exactly where I belong.

As a Black person (one of the very few in my field) I have encountered a lot of challenges along the way. Many were discouraging. However, I developed a 'tunnel vision'. By this I mean I focused strictly on where I wanted to get to and did not let anything distract me from that goal.

I am motivated by

I get excited by the prospect of discovering new things we haven't seen before. Coming up with new ways of thinking about our universe, and trying to confirm them using experiments, is something I love doing every day.

My work also allows me to travel a lot. I also get to meet with some of the brightest minds in the world. I feel like I am constantly learning new things every day. In turn I get to share my knowledge with my students and postdocs. This is very rewarding. I also really like that I set my own schedule. This can sometimes mean that I start work at 10 AM or 2 PM and work until midnight. If there is work to be done, I will be working. However, it also means I could be sitting on a beach (when I am not teaching) and trying to solve physics problems.

How I affect peoples’ lives

My career is very important. The job of a physicist is to understand how nature works. By doing this we satisfy human curiosity. However, the major byproduct of this is that we get to build amazing new technologies that we would never have dreamed of had we not tried to understand nature. For example, particle physicists built the particle collider at CERN to understand the fundamental building blocks of life. While they were doing this, they invented the internet so they could quickly move the massive amounts of data they had collected, from country to country. My career also allows me to think creatively and critically. This means I can easily transfer my skills to many other career paths.

Outside of work I

I really enjoy soccer. I watch and play a lot of soccer when I am not working. I also enjoy hiking; I think it’s a more fun form of exercise. I do a lot of outreach where I talk about my career and career path to the general public, teaching particle physics to high school and university students.

My advice to others

If you have a passion for physics you must stick with it, no matter how difficult it gets. You won't understand everything you come across. But if you try and you work at it, and work with other people, you will succeed. It really isn't about showing you are a genius; it’s about learning about our beautiful Universe.