Profile

I live in a village just outside York with my partner, our two dogs, one cat and a gecko.  I watch television but would rather listen to music.  BBC6Music is my favourite radio station, playing a very eclectic mix of music.  My favourite band of all time is Joy Division but I like all sorts of music, jazz, hip hop, punk, northern soul, indie, ska.  In fact pretty much all music, except opera.

I like to be active.  I would say that primarily I’m a triathlete, preferring the longer middle distance or half ironman.  Cycling however is my favourite sport.  I compete regularly in time trials and cyclocross, depending on the time of the year.  I should be doing the London Marathon this year.  It has already been postponed once and there’s talk of postponing it again!

My role is split between teaching and research.  My degree is in astrophysics, so I mainly concentrate on astrophysics experiments, such as spectroscopy, radio telescopes and interferometry but I will also set up other core experiments, such as Rutherford Scattering or Fraunhofer Diffraction.  I really enjoy the start of a new academic year, meeting new freshers, keen to start their studies.  I will train the astrophysics students on how to use the telescopes that we have.

In research, every day can be different.  One day I could be testing for leaks in an ultra high vacuum system, the next I could be in the mechanical workshop manufacturing a part for a new experiment.  At York, we have research groups in nuclear physics, biophysics, plasma physics, condensed matter, photonics and theoretical.  All of these groups need support in some way, whether that is routine work, such as topping up liquid nitrogen dewars for nuclear detectors, or helping to design new research experiments.

I like to get up at 06:00 every day, I find an early dog walk wakes me up.  I will go out whatever the weather but sometimes the dogs don’t like bad rain.  After breakfast, the first thing I do when I get to work is check emails and plans for the day.  Sometimes it is easier to get ordering done before researchers find an experiment is broken.  If I am in teaching labs, I like to make the sure that the students’ experiments are working and that the students are happy.

Once everything is running smoothly, I will carry out the tasks that I need to.  Occasionally, something urgent will come up, such as a leak in a vacuum system.  Some of our vacuum systems on the microscopes go down to 10^-9-10^-12 mB.  Researchers really don’t want unwanted air molecules in the system, so we will isolate the chamber and use a leak detector to try and find the leak.  We do this using a mass spectrometer that detects if helium is admitted to the system.  Even a tiny scratch on a copper gasket can let in air.

Once I get home again, it’s back out with the dogs before  do whatever triathlon training is on the agenda for that day, be it a swim, a turbo session, or a run.