News

Dr Jack Woolley has been awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry's (RSC) 2025 Technical Excellence Award for providing outstanding technical and scientific support to users of the Warwick Centre for Ultrafast Spectroscopy (WCUS).

Jack has been the platform manager since the foundation of the WCUS Research Technology Platform (RTP) in 2021, and his role includes everything from managing finances, purchasing, and health and safety, to training users and designing experiments. He works with a wide range of researchers from master’s students to postdocs and PIs, both at Warwick and from other institutions. He also helps users run experiments, analyse data, and often teach them how to operate the equipment themselves.

Apart from the day to day practical aspects of his job, Jack also invests time in promoting the research capabilities of the facility to academics and supervisors here at Warwick as well as in public outreach engagement activities. He demonstrates the use of his laser at events including the live lab Christmas lectures, Resonate Festivals at Warwick and a local art gallery.

On hearing about the award, Jack said 'There are so many brilliant technicians here at Warwick and across the UK, so to be recognised like this is a real honour'.

On Saturday the 9^th of March the WCUS RTP attended the Resonate Festival of Science and Technology, where they presented the effects of lasers and light. Visitors got to see the effects of interference through the WCUS Michelson Interferometer (funding for which was provided by a technician demonstrator award in 2023). They also demonstrated their fluorescent kitchen, explaining how molecules and materials deal with the energy they absorb. Throughout the day over 500 visitors of all ages got to learn how they control light in their laboratory and use lasers to measure materials.

Winner:
Godwin Yeboah, Senior Research Software Engineer - RTP

Godwin played a pivotal role in creating a ground-breaking database of Parisian play performances leading up to Napoleon's empire. Despite challenges, such as a complex dataset in French and differing historical date systems, his problem-solving expertise and leadership ensured the delivery of a transformative research tool.

The database will help revolutionise the study of early 19th-century theatre.