Profile
Josh Dorrington
My CV
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Education:
I went to the Windsor Boys’ School, and after that I went to university in Exeter where I did a Masters degree in physics. After that I decided to continue on and do a PhD in atmospheric physics (i.e. the weather) at the University of Oxford where I am now 🙂
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Qualifications:
12 GCSEs
The International Baccalaureate, (or IB) where I specialised in Physics, Biology and Maths, and also studied English, Spanish and Geography)
Masters Degree in Physics from the University of Exeter
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Work History:
I’ve done a number of part-time jobs over the years. I worked in a sweet shop when I was 16, and while I was at uni I worked in a pub, and at a cafe as well as briefly as a car park attendant at a beach. I also did a summer internship at the Met Office, where I worked on improving the detection of lightning using radio waves, which is where I got interested in weather prediction!
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Current Job:
Now I am a PhD student, in my 3rd year at the University of Oxford, studying the predictability of the atmosphere.
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About Me:
Hi! I’m Josh, I’m 25, and as well as science I love music 🎵, drama 🎭 and hanging out in nature! 🌳🌲🍃
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I live in Oxford, but my family lives in Norfolk with my cat 🐱. I really enjoy rock climbing, reading fantasy fiction, playing video games and sometimes I do some improvised comedy shows! I’ve also seen every episode of Star Trek ever made at least twice… 🖖
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In science you try and find out the rules that explain how things in the world behave, like the laws of gravity.
But sometimes even if you know all the rules, you still can’t tell what is going to happen in the future! That’s because sometimes the world is so complicated that even teeny tiny differences between what you think is going on and what is actually happening, can turn into huuuuuge differences in what things do next. This is called Chaos, and it’s why its so hard to predict the weather!
I study the weather by creating models of Earth and the winds and rain on my computer, and on really large supercomputers which can be as big as a whole room!
I work out how good our predictions of the weather are, what we are getting wrong and why, and how we can make our predictions better. I love doing this sort of science because I get to do cool physics and make awesome simulations of chaos like this:
https://joshdorrington.github.io/L63_simulator/ensemble/
But also I get to make a real impact and help to predict really bad floods and hurricanes which can save peoples’ lives.
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My Typical Day:
Because I work on a computer, I can do science from my bed if I really want! But normally I try and go into my office where I can talk to all the other PhD students I work with. Normally I’ll spend an hour each day talking to other scientists or reading their work so I can learn lots of exciting new ideas. The rest of the time, I create computer models of the Earth and do experiments on the weather in my virtual world.
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I normally get up quite late, about 9:30 (although I’m trying to get up earlier!) and get to my office by about 10. I work there with other PhD students who also are interested in chaos and the atmosphere, and while we work quite hard we also have lots of time for breaks and chatting. We even set up a ping pong table!
On a normal day I spend most of my time on my computer, programming and writing code so I can run new and interesting experiments on my virtual weather models. Every day is something different, because every question I answer creates 10 new questions to think about!
I also get to travel around and give talks to other scientists about what I’ve been working on, sometimes in really exciting places! Here’s me an hour after giving a talk in the Alps:
I also do outreach, and some friends and I made a (very small) supercomputer out of Raspberry Pis so we could go around and predict the weather right in front of you at festivals and events. We were very excited about that as you may be able to tell:
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I would love to develop a really high quality, exciting, demonstration of chaos that I could take round schools and showcase at outreach events.
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Curious, occasionally silly.
What did you want to be after you left school?
I wasn't sure, but I knew I wanted to do something sciency
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Aha definitely, especially towards the end I got a bit rebellious...
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Iron Maiden 🤘
What's your favourite food?
Ooh probably pizza. Or curry. Or ice cream...
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
Ooh good question! Hmm, OK: 1.) To learn everything in a book just by touching it. There isn't enough time to read them all after all! 2.) To be much much much better at playing the guitar.3.) No more climate change!
Tell us a joke.
I had to make this bad chemistry joke because all the good ones Argon.
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