Astrophysics PhD student, Catriona McDonald talks to BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire about her involvement with Nasa's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission, which launched on 26 November, 2021. The mission will test that if an asteroid was heading for Earth, whether sending a spacecraft towards it would be able to redirect it away from Earth. In June 2021, Catriona attended a virtual meeting with all the scientists working on the mission to see how NASA makes a mission like this happen.

Listen to Catriona talking on BBC Radio.

Many congratulations to Drs Elena Cukanovaite, James Gott and Samuele Ferracin, for their success in the 2021 PhD Thesis Prize competition. Elena won the Winton Prize for Astrophysics, James was awarded the Springer Thesis Prize, while Samuele is the recipient of the Faculty of Science and Department of Physics Thesis prize. Read on for more details about the prizes and their research.

Three PhD students from the class of 2019 have been awarded prestigious prizes for their outstanding doctoral theses. George King was awarded the Winton Prize for Astrophysics, while Ben Chapman and Connor Mosley won the Faculty of Science Thesis Prize. Connor also obtained the Springer Thesis Prize, and his thesis will be published by Springer. Congratulations to all! Full story

Three Physics postgraduates have been recognised by the University for their excellence in teaching.

Sam Holt of the Superconductivity and Magnetism group is the winner of a Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence, and Jack Bradshaw (CFSA) and Sam Ferracin (Theory) received commendations.

Congratulations to all.