Laurence Datrier

"If I could have dinner with one person from history, I'd love to have dinner with my grandfather, who passed away when I was 15. I'd love to let him know everything I've been up to, and hear more of his stories about being a resistant in WWII - I've sadly forgotten many of them! He was strict but always full of wisdom... And odd sayings. I've actually been trying to teach those sayings to people I know who are learning French, because no one uses them anymore. For example, when asked where he was going, he'd often reply 'A Jailles, au pays des oies bleues' (To Jailles, in the land of the blue geese). They're just fun to share, and it keeps him alive in a way. I've been thinking about him a lot lately; with the world going through a very difficult time at the moment, it would be great to get some advice from him. To me, that would be more invaluable than any dinner conversation with any famous person who's ever lived."

Laurence Datrier is a PhD student at University of Glasgow who has worked on a variety of topics, from multi-messenger astronomy to measuring the expansion rate of the universe to calibrating the LIGO detectors. In her free time, Laurence likes to read, run, lift, go hiking, travel, knit, cross stitch, make things out of chainmail, and try to learn languages. She read every single Sherlock Holmes novel and short story as a teenager and found herself quite fascinated by the way Sherlock Holmes seemed to reach conclusions from tiny, seemingly insignificant details. She is much more critical of his methods now! Laurence is also an avid artist, and brought a small set of watercolours to LIGO Hanford when she went there as a LIGO Fellow. She's been painting landscapes from there and bits of equipment from the labs ever since (see the picture above). You can follow Laurence (and her art!) on Twitter at @ASleepyWanderer.