The Public Engagement Early-Career Forum

Dawn Geatches

Hello, I'm Dawn Geatches, a Project Scientist in the Computational Chemistry Group of the Scientific Computing Department of STFC, Daresbury Laboratory (Cheshire). My research is quantum mechanics applied to materials, and I work with university and industry partners exploring the fundamental properties and behaviour of materials in different environments. My PE work includes volunteering at STFC Open Days, giving a talk to the general public, mentoring and supervising work experience students. I enjoy it because I can be enthusiastic about science, encourage the same spark of scientific curiosity in others and of course, it's really good fun!

(Credit: STFC)

Greg Corbett

Greg is a Software Engineer in STFC Scientific Computing Department and holds a Masters Degree in Computer Science. He is a STEM Ambassador and published author in academic science journals. When not writing code or engaging the public, he enjoys playing board games, watching bad movies and drinking real ale.

(Credit: G Corbett)

Josie Rawes

Josie currently works as a Teaching Associate in the School of Physics at the University of Bristol. Prior to this, she helped to coordinate a mobile outreach project called ‘Lab in a Lorry’. This project toured schools in Wales aiming to promote physics and inspire the next generation of scientists.

(Credit: J Rawes)

Kristin Lohwasser

Kristin Lohwasser is a researcher at the University of Sheffield, investigating fundamental particles and their interactions at the ATLAS experiment in CERN, Geneva. She completed her physics degree at Dortmund University and also finished a degree in journalism, including a one-year internship at a newspaper. After her undergraduate, she completed a DPhil at Oxford and worked as post-doc at Freiburg University and at DESY.

(Credit: Susann Niedworok, DESY)

Laura Kent

Following a PhD in materials chemistry at the University of Surrey, Laura joined the electronics and magnetic materials group at NPL. Laura has been involved in numerous public engagement events including developing science engagement activities for primary schools and introducing the three minute thesis competition to the University’s postgraduate conference.

(Credit: L Kent)

Martin Black

My name is Martin Black. I completed my undergraduate degree in Astronomy and Physics at the University of Glasgow. Having enjoyed my optical and practical courses, I decided to transition into engineering. I applied to join STFC, at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre, as an Optical Engineer. Since then I've worked on about 10 different project for astronomy, medical imaging, and Earth observation.

(Credit: M Black)

Sally Cooper

Sally is a Research Associate at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester. Her research is on searching for pulsars using the next generation of radio telescopes, like the Square Kilometre Array. Part of Sally's research is to learn how to train computers to help identify pulsars using machine learning techniques.

(Credit: RADA Big Data)

Sabrina Gaertner

Sabrina’s background lies in laboratory astrophysics and astrochemistry, in particular studying gas-phase ion chemistry in star forming regions. Now she is an Instrument Scientist at the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source focussing on the structure of water ice, and uses many outreach opportunities to promote what I consider to be interesting science!

(Credit: STFC)

William Taylor

William has been based at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh for the last ten years. Starting with his PhD through the University of Edinburgh and then literally moving down the corridor to join STFC’s UK Astronomy Technology Centre. He now works as a Project Scientist: splitting his time between research into Massive Stars and more technical work to help build new instruments for telescopes.

(Credit: W Taylor)

William Trickey

William Trickey is a PhD student at the University of York. His research involves the study of extreme shocks in plasmas with application in fusion energy. Will helps with a variety outreach projects at the University of York including the creation of a fusion podcast called: A glass of seawater.

(Credit: W Trickey)

Abbey-Rhian Powell

Abby-Rhian is a PhD student in the Nuclear and Hadron Physics group at the University of Glasgow. Her research involves measuring the polarisation of photons used to probe the behaviour of quarks in protons and neutrons. Abby-Rhian has developed a series of nuclear scattering workshops for school students from primary to collage ages that have been delivered locally in Glasgow as well as in a national programme of nuclear physics masterclasses. She was also awarded the inaugural Kick-Start Public Engagement Internship as part of the binding-blocks programme.

Aran Singanayagam

Aran Singanayagam is a clinical academic at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London. He completed his undergraduate medical training at University of Edinburgh and PhD. at Imperial College. Aran currently splits his time between clinical work and experimental laboratory-based research. His research focusses on how pulmonary host-defence is dysregulated in the context of inflammatory airway diseases.

(Credit: A Singanayagam)

Emily Lewis

Emily is a researcher at the STFC Scientific Computing Department where she investigates machine learning for emulating scientific simulations. She completed a Nuclear Engineering degree at the University of Birmingham. She is a STEM Ambassador and volunteers at STFC public engagement events in addition to hosting outreach activities and mentoring work experience students

(Credit: E Lewis)

Hannah Sargeant

Hannah is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at The Open University. Her research is focussed on accessing water on the Moon to generate supplies for future missions. After completing a PhD looking at techniques to produce water from the lunar regolith, Hannah is now working on the LUVMI-X rover concept. Utilising her experience as a Physics teacher, Hannah is actively engaged in public outreach delivering talks and producing teaching resources.

(Credit: H. Sargeant)

Jamie Williams

Jamie is a Wellcome Trust ISSF Research Fellow at the University of Leicester, working on applications of graphene in prosthetics. In parallel, he is the PI of the RadEOT project, which uses commercially-available components and a bespoke GUI to detect, process and utilise freely available radio data for use in the classroom. RadEOT is being deployed to three institutions across the UK during 2020 to improve educational attainment, boost skills and inspire people into STEM careers.

(Credit: J. Williams)

Philippos Papadakis

Philippos is a Nuclear Physicist in the STFC Nuclear Physics Group, investigating exotic atomic nuclei produced using particle accelerators. He constructed several experimental setups which are used in laboratories across Europe. After completing his PhD at the University of Liverpool, he moved to the northernmost Accelerator Laboratory in the world, in Jyväskylä Finland, to continue his research. There he organised yearly large-scale outreach activities and learned what a real winter feels like.

(Credit: P. Kivimäki)

Sarah Bugby

Sarah is a Lecturer in the Department of Physics at Loughborough University. Her research uses detectors that have been developed for X-ray astronomy and particle physics, and applies them to other areas such as nuclear medicine. She has been involved in a range of PE engagement activities since she was an undergraduate, and is particularly keen that current and future Physics students get the opportunity to have fun, share their work, and become better scientists through PE.

(Credit: S. Bugby)