Name: Phil Woodruff

Job title: Emeritus Professor and Recognised Researcher

Department: Physics

Number of years at Warwick: 54 (including 3 years as a PhD student 1965-1968)

There’s no such thing as a typical day, but, in brief, my job involves...

As an independent researcher I spend most of my time working on manuscript preparation, book writing, data interpretation and communicating (especially by email) with collaborators and PhD students. Much of my experimental work involves the use of synchrotron radiation at the UK’s national facility – the Diamond Light Source near Abingdon – and I spend several weeks each year working there when we have allocated time for experiments. I also spend quite a lot of time doing review work on proposals for research grants and access to synchrotron radiation, mostly for the Royal Society and for agencies in Sweden.

In the past, when I was working full time as a Professor in the Physics Department, I had a range of roles in undergraduate and graduate teaching, and some aspects of administration and graduate student admissions. I also ran an experimental group of PhD students and postdoctoral researchers with many experiments performed in the Department, in part to support synchrotron radiation experiments in Berlin, Grenoble and New York as well as in the UK.

In my time at Warwick, the biggest change I’ve seen is...

Much the biggest changes I have seen have been in the expansion of the University and the Physics Department. When I first came to Warwick there was a total of 450 undergraduates in the University and the Physics Department had 5 academic staff and 5 PhD students (plus a few postdoctoral researchers). It was a exciting tight-knit community and it was easy to drive into the University and park your car!

The huge expansion has brought many benefits in terms of facilities but inevitable problems associated with any large-scale employer. Perhaps the thing has impacted most on my work in a very positive way is the fact that I can now access all the scientific journals on line (within the University, at home, and when I am travelling) – I no longer need to make weekly visits to the library to see what new journals have arrived and to spend many hours doing literature searches in the library working through huge physical volumes of abstracting journals.

The best thing about working at Warwick is...

The Physics Department at Warwick has always been a great place to work in terms of the friendly and constructive interactions with other academics, technical and clerical staff.

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"The Physics Department at Warwick has always been a great place to work in terms of the friendly and constructive interactions with other academics, technical and clerical staff."