Natalie is a PhD student in the Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Metamaterials. Her research topic is “Graded Index Magnonics” – studying and designing gradually changing refractive indices for spin waves in magnetic materials.
Twitter: @NataliePhysics
Sam is a PhD student in the astrophysics group. His research topic is “Observational Studies of Planet Forming Stars” – where he’s currently studying the disagreement between observations and theoretical models of low-mass, red dwarf stars.
Twitter: @smorrell
We’ve now launched the “Elevator Pitch” video series on the “Physics at Exeter” YouTube Channel – and we’re looking for budding volunteers to do a quick, super-simple explanation of their research to a lay-audience. Two of our former postgrads, Hannah Wakeford and Moncho Raposo, originally came up with this idea a few years ago – and we’ve been keen to reinstate the idea, since we have such a perfect location for it in the Physics tower. We’re keen for the general public, especially young budding physicists, to get an insight into the work we do here, and to see that we’re just a bunch of interesting, mostly normal (!) people who love science!
Another series of videos we’re starting to work on is called “Ask a Physicist / Ask an Astrophysicist” – we’re hoping to get local schools to send us physics questions from their students, and we’ll find an academic (at any level) to respond to them, in a 3 minute (or so) video. This is a fantastic way to inspire the younger generation about physics – we know we’d have been thrilled to have a physics expert answer our questions on a YouTube video!
To top off your helping of videos, we are also offering visiting academics and seminar speakers a chance to discuss their research in our “Guest Lecture” series. For this we want to give a broader view of other work that goes on around the world within physics and astronomy.
We’d really like to thank everyone who has been a part of this up until now, especially those who’ve helped get the channel off the ground. We also hope to advertise for volunteers to take part in either videos, or even help with editing videos / running the channel, on the notice boards in the physics lifts – physicists, please keep an eye out for this if you’d like to be involved!
Written by: Natalie Whitehead and Sam Morrell