Physics Department News

A team of researchers from the Physics and Chemistry departments, in groups led by Professor Pam Thomas and Dr Richard Walton, respectively, have had images from a recent paper selected for the front cover  of the Journal of Applied Crystallography for the duration of 2011. Please see the link below for more information

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/condensedmatt/ferroelectrics/research/birefringence

2010 Christmas Letter from the Department of Physics

Dear Friends,

The department has seen one rather noticeable change at the top this year, with Malcolm Cooper retiring after nearly a decade at the helm.  I should express the gratitude of all staff and students, past and present, for his attentive leadership over the period.  He grew the department quite remarkably, including two new and now large and thriving groups in Astronomy and in Particle Physics, and even bequeathed a healthy set of financial accounts to his successor.  I am also pleased to report that he has kindly rejoined us part-time to plot phase three of his XMAS spectrometer at Grenoble.

We are delighted that Phil Woodruff is to be awarded the Max Born Prize 2011,

"for his pioneering work in the development of experimental techniques for quantitative surface structure determination and their use in providing new insights into a range of surface phenomena"

The Max Born Prize is awarded jointly by the Institute of Physics and the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (DPG).  In alternate years it is awarded by the DPG to a scientist working in the UK and vice versa.

From two singular contributions to the cumulative, the researchers of the department have published over 250 scientific papers in 2010 (and still counting), and the research of the department was cited over 7000 times during the year.  If you want to sample just one, try “Two White Dwarfs with Oxygen-Rich Atmospheres” published by our Astronomy group in the Jan 8th issue of top journal Science Magazine (vol. 327 pp 188-190).

Our new Materials and Analytical Sciences building is now taking shape, with the concrete structure complete and the outer walls now rising – albeit slowed by recent weather being too cold to lay bricks.   I have had one tour up three floors and am confident you will be impressed when you visit the completed building.

You will have heard of the government’s Comprehensive Spending Review.  For research, we will not know how the different funding councils stand until 20 Dec, although one recent briefing was relatively upbeat.  Even so, this is all rather unsettling for our early career researchers and I salute their stoic perseverance at this time. The same review has dramatic impact on funding for our future undergraduates.  A new regime in which our home/EU students have to take much more responsibility for funding their own study through loans makes the department ever more mindful to provide the best possible training in return.  There are some associated developments with which you might be able to help, as follows.

I am keen that all our students should meet a broad range of career role models during their study at Warwick.  Can you help with any of these? 

• I am keen to have occasional guest lectures in our undergraduate lecture courses, giving students a flavour of how their study can relate to aspects of real world careers.  Have you got a tale to tell?
• We already run Careers Evenings for our students – whether you are a recruiter or just a successful graduate, your experience can help our students shape their plans.
• We are introducing a new “industrial” placement scheme for research postgraduates as part of phase two of the Midlands Physics Alliance Graduate School.  If your business could benefit from hosting a PhD student for up to three months (or more) then get in touch.

In any case we remain ever keen to hear what all our alumni are doing.  If your career has taken a new turn or onward step, or simply you never told us before, then do drop us a line. 

Career developments within the department include David Leadley becoming Deputy Head, Julie Staunton Head of Theory, and Pam Thomas, Chris McConville and Steve Dixon taking charge of the three research clusters within Condensed Matter.  We welcome Michal Kreps as a new Assistant Professor in Particle Physics, and we look forward to three further new faculty joining us in the New Year, spread across Astronomy, Particles and Fusion.  During the year two faculty moved on, Arthur Peeters (to Bayreuth) and Mario Nicodemi (to Napoli), and we marked the retirement after long service of Adrian Lovejoy and Keith Briggs – we wish them all well.

I wish you a very merry Christmas and best wishes for 2011,

Yours,

Robin Ball

Happy Christmas from the University of Warwick

This year, in order to share some of the University's activities and achievements of the last 12 months, we have developed an online greeting as our way of saying “Happy Christmas”.

2010 has been a busy year at Warwick, and by exploring our Christmas campus scene you will be able to discover some of the ways we, as a university, have contributed to our local and national community, as well as our global impact. There are also some special gifts and prizes to be found. You can explore the scene here: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/christmas2010

This initiative is in keeping with our drive to reduce paper use by the University. We are very aware of our environmental impact and the money we would have spent on traditional cards will be invested in additional landscaping to improve our campus and to benefit the environment. The money that was saved last year was spent on planting 20 silver birch trees outside the Students’ Union. 

We hope you enjoy exploring the Christmas campus scene and finding out about some of the unique contributions that Warwick makes to our global community.

Congratulations to Phil Woodruff on winning the Max-Born-Prize for 2011. The Max Born Prize is awarded jointly by the Institute of Physics and the Deutsche Physikalisched Gesellschaft (DPG). In even-numbered years it is awarded to a scientist working in Germany by the IoP and in odd-numbered years by the DPG to a scientist working in the UK. The presentation will take place at the DPG's 75th Annual Conference in Dresden in March next year. Phil will deliver an associated invited lecture at this meeting, and has also been contacted by the conference organisers about the schedule, but the conference programme is not yet published.