DR MAURA IMBERT
CHEMISTRY WITH ASTRONOMY
By Gail Massy
Express Woman
December 16, 2001
Pages 12, 13
When she stands before the T&T Astronomical Society's monthly meetings, Dr Maura Imbert is in her element - a bright star with a quiet force. You would never think she is a chemist.
A founding member of the astronomical society and president since 1972, Maura Imbert has written numerous articles for newspapers and magazines, and is co-author of two pioneering texts on observational astronomy in the region, Trinidadian Skies and Tropical Skies. She used research by computer to map the regional heavens and published Caribbean Skies in 1998 and is currently working on a companion volume, The Caribbean Moon.
But Maura P. Imbert is a chemist. She has a B.Sc. in chemistry, M.Sc. in organic chemistry, a Ph.D. in plant bio-chemistry and a diploma in bacteriology. She has a special interest in natural preservatives, medicinal plants, essential oil, herbs and spices, natural insecticides, microbial enhanced oil recovery and plant hormones, and her research in some of these areas have led to important scientific breakthroughs.
Among her notable achievements, Imbert developed a patented three-spice extract which can act as a substitute for chemical preservatives in certain beverages, and which has been incorporated into a successful local soft drink. She presented papers on the extract at international conferences in Zimbabwe and London. Also, she developed a simple methodology, suitable for cottage industry, for the extraction of a natural insecticide from Neem and Persian Lilac kernels.
And she also developed a "cold methodology" which does not destroy active principles for the extraction of a sterile Aloe Vera gel.
And discovered, too, that a local 'thyme' was a rich source of an essential oil which was successfully used in a male toiletry by a major American company on a trial basis.
DR Imbert, when she was working at Cariri, also introduced the idea of Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR) to Trintoc. The results of a successful Cariri MEOR project on a number of wells were presented as a joint Cariri / Trintoc paper at an international conference in New York.
Maura Imbert was born in Dublin, Ireland. She is married to Desmond Imbert, emeritus professor and former head of the Construction Department at UWI. She is the mother of three - Michael, Fiona and Colm Imbert.
"I have been interested in astronomy since I was about ten years old," she said. "I went with my father each week to choose my books for the week, one was always on astronomy. My interest must be a recessive gene since nobody in my family then, or my family now, has any interest in astronomy.
"I joined the Irish Astronomical Society while at university and when I came to the West Indies, we lived in Barbados for a while and I joined the Society there. I mentioned this to Mr Esmond Ramesar, then in charge of the Extra Mural Society, UWI, when we came to Trinidad in 1964. He asked me if I would give a course on basic astronomy, saying that if I succeeded in promoting the formation of an astronomical society, the Extra Mural Department would donate a telescope. In some trepidation, I agreed, and to my astonishment, Dr Russel Barrow was one of my students! He was already an experienced amateur astronomer with a telescope installed in his garden and his presence in my class certainly kept me on my toes!
"He was enthusiastic about the formation of an astronomical society and I admired the wholehearted way he went about everything he did. I did not own a telescope at the time and I greatly enjoyed many observing sessions at his home and on expeditions to various good observing sites in Trinidad. I also greatly admired his electronic and photographic skills and I learned a great deal from him. Circumstances brought me to Europe during the period 1966-1968 and the Astronomical Society was firmly established and the telescope installed on the rooftop of what is now called The Frank Stockdale Building upon my return."
The late DR Barrow was the first president of the Trinidad and Tobago Astronomical Society. Monthly society meetings continue to be held at the Sir Frank Stockdale Building with viewing sessions on the rooftop using several telescopes.
Maura P. Imbert is a remarkable woman, and the year 2001 marked two important milestones in her astronomical career.
In Tobago on September 8, she played an integral part in the video-taping of a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event: the occultation of one of the moons of the planet Uranus. The T&T team's precise, definitive taping of Titania being eclipsed by a star is a precious recording which was made available to international astronomical societies and featured on several Internet websites. The site of the taping of the occultation was Dr Bruno Mitchell's observatory at Arnos Vale.
The other noteworthy event in 2001 for Maura Imbert was her trip to Antigua, at the Spring Equinox on March 20, on the invitation of the government there, to do research on a site little-known as the Caribbean Stonehenge. Dr Imbert and a student doing her thesis went to test the theory that it was an ancient astronomical observatory.
"Arleene Atwell [working towards a final degree in Land Surveying] took bearings of 18 'megaliths' on Greencastle Hill," Dr Imbert said, "and I attempted to correlate these bearings with azimuths of stars known to be important to the Arawaks. It is possible that there might have been a temple dedicated to the Pleiades on Greencastle Hill which may have been an ancient observatory similar to Stonehenge."
"The Arawaks were on Greencastle Hill during the period 500-1250 AD and I used the year 1000 AD for azimuth determinations. We appear to have discovered correlations between important stellar groups such as the Pleiades or Seven Sisters, Ursa Major, Orion and Scorpio, and we are now finishing analyses of our data. Our efforts have led the Government of Antigua to consider making Greencastle Hill a Heritage Site."
In 1964 Esmond Ramesar challenged a young Maura Imbert to help start an astronomical society; he would have been proud to see that apart from playing a major role in helping to form the T&T society, she has managed to sustain that drive for over thirty years, and has succeeded in making astronomy available and interesting to the wider community, while inspiring countless young students to look towards the stars.
In the midst of everything else, Dr Maura Imbert, chemist, once an amateur astronomer, is now working towards her Master's Degree in astronomy
Some quiet force seems to be driving this bright star.