Physics Department News
Dr Rebecca Nealon awarded ARC Future Fellowship at Monash University
Congratulations to Dr Rebecca Nealon (previously Astronomy and Astrophysics Group) who has recently relocated to Monash University, Melbourne and has been awarded an ARC Future Fellowship.
Dr Nealon's project titled 'Solving the mysteries of warped discs to reveal how planets are born in evolving star systems' will delve into the origins of planet formation in warped discs. Planets are born in dusty, swirling gas discs called protoplanetary discs. However, the process by which these planets are created is still poorly understood and recent observations of discs show interesting geometries like warps. Dr Nealon's project will use these warps to explain how and when planets are born.
The Big Bang Fair sparks excitement for students
In June, a team of enthusiastic physicists attended the annual Big Bang Fair at Birmingham's NEC, aiming to spark young students interest in science and future careers in the field.
The Big Bang Fair is the UK's biggest celebration of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) for schools and runs for three days each year, with thousands of year 6, 7 and 8 students in attendance. The team from the Department of Physics were also joined by colleagues from the Department of Engineering, Department of Chemistry and Warwick Manufacturing Group from the University of Warwick.
Annual Scientist Experience trip to Grenoble
Earlier this July, we proudly hosted our annual Scientist Experience trip funded by the X-Ray Material Science Beamline at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF)Link opens in a new window in Grenoble.
The trip offers sixteen female Year 12 Physics students from across the UK a once in a lifetime, all-expenses paid opportunity to visit the prestigious European Synchrotron Radiation Facility.
An article focused on an extremely rare, high mass, compact binary star discovery has been featured on the cover of Nature Astronomy
The discovery was first published online in Nature Astronomy in April, by then PhD student, and now postdoc, James Munday and has since been featured on the cover of Nature Astronomy’s June issue. James, supervised by Dr Ingrid Pelisoli and Prof Pier-Emmanuel Tremblay, discovered a type Ia supernova progenitor within a mere 50 parsecs. Type Ia supernovae are standardisable candles used to measure cosmological distances and were instrumental in the discovery of the accelerated expansion of the Universe (Nobel Prize in Physics 2011).