I am a research associate/support scientist in the physics and astronomy department at the University of Leicester. My position is split into three distinct roles, the majority share of my time is involved in the SuperWASP project; this has involved designing and building the public archive which makes a large proportion of the data set publically available. Currently I am working on the next version of the data reduction pipeline which will be used to reanalyse the data and generate more accurate results. The second part of my job is maintaining and developing the astronomical database service LEDAS. This is the main European portal to the World's astronomical data. The final aspect of my job is the continuation of my personal research into intermediate polars.
I recently finished a Ph.D. in astrophysics at the Open University, supervised by Dr. Andy Norton and Dr. Ulrich Kolb. The aim of my project was to investigate the nature of the magnetic field in magnetic cataclysmic variables.
I tackled the problem with three complementary approaches; firstly I analysed data from the RXTE satellite of hard X-ray selected candidate intermediate polars. The aim of this was to classify these candidates as bona fide members of the class and thus discover if the hard X-ray selected population is the same as the soft X-ray selected.
The second approach was an optical circular polarization survey of known intermediate polars. This gave a much higher level of consistency across the field than had been gained from previous individual target measurements. The survey showed that circular polarization is present in more systems, and at a higher level, than previously thought.
The final approach was computational modelling of the accretion column in intermediate polars and combining this with an existing simulation of their accretion disc topology. The combination of these two models allowed a full photo-electric absorption simulation to be developed. This involved the creation of a pseudo-parallel code to run on a cluster. This work has started to elucidate the emission profiles of the systems as a function of their physical conditions.
I read an M.Sci. in Physics at Imperial College London, graduating with a first class Masters in Science degree in 2005 (see table below). The syllabus followed a compulsory selection in the first year with ever increasing choice in the later years. A significant amount of project work was undertaken with much emphasis on computer modelling. All of the models were written in C++. Examples include: a simulation of a ferromagnetic material - using the Monte Carlo methods; a simulation of a chaotic double pendulum and a galaxy simulation.
My final year research project was a computer model simulating LeSage Gravity in Dusty Plasmas. This was a continuation of the research project I began in the summer of my third year at Imperial. I constructed a simulation in C++ of dust particles in a low temperature plasma to test the hypothesised attractive force known as LeSage gravity. The method used was a molecular dynamics algorithm.
| Subject | Mark (%) |
| Electricity & Magnetism | 89 |
| Mathematics | 88 |
| Matter,Vibrations & Waves, Quantum Physics & the Universe | 68 |
| Mechanics & Relativity | 87 |
| Physics Laboratory I | 77 |
| Physics Short Experiments & Project I | 69 |
| Weighted first year mark | 79.14 |
| Electromagnetism & Optics | 72 |
| Electrons in Solids & Applications of Quantum Mechanics | 80 |
| Mathematical Physics, Statistics of Measurement & Professional Skills | 79 |
| Physics Laboratory II | 70 |
| Quantum Mechanics | 55 |
| Sun, Stars & Planets | 68 |
| Thermodynamics & Statistical Physics | 60 |
| Weighted first & second year mark | 72.7 |
| Accounting | 70 |
| Advanced Classical Physics | 87 |
| Astrophysics | 92 |
| Computational Physics | 71 |
| Nuclear & Particle Physics | 67 |
| Physics I Comprehensive Paper | 80 |
| Physics II Comprehensive Paper | 65 |
| Physics Laboratory | 65 |
| Plasma Physics | 63 |
| Solid State & Atomic Physics and Professional Skills | 69 |
| Weighted first, second & third year mark | 72.7 |
| Atmospheric Physics | 55 |
| Cosmology | 72 |
| General Relativity | 75 |
| Instrumentation | 80 |
| Physics Research Project & Research Interfaces | 80 |
| Space Physics | 75 |
| Weighted first, second, third & fourth year mark | 73.6 |
| A Levels | GCSEs | ||
| Physics | A | Dual Science | A* A* |
| Maths | A | Maths | A* |
| Further Maths | B | English Language | B |
| Business Studies | C | English Literature | B |
| French | B | ||
| Physical Education | B | ||
| Business Studies | B | ||
| Graphics | C |
I am an active member in a research initiative aiming to explore virtual learning environments by using the Second Life World. The project is called Schome and is housed on a private island in the teenage grid. I have several roles within the project. I have been using my programming skills to create interactive objects on the island and data collection and analysis tools to evaluate the effectiveness of the pilot. I was also involved in a project in which the community have developed a satellite to go into space for a national competition. We were short listed and our project was developed further with the help of a Surrey Satellite Technology Limited.
I undertook an undergraduate research opportunity program placement in which I worked in the Plasma Physics research group in my department. During this time I constructed a two-dimensional simulation of homogeneous dust immersed in a low temperature plasma. The aim of this being to build a flexible framework for later development in my M.Sci. research project.
Relocation and construction of specialised equipment within the department.
General bar work.
Free lance tutor for A-Level and GCSE students in Maths and Physics.
I have been involved in numerous traditional science communication outreach events, with various groups of people ranging from brownies to amateur astronomy societies. In each case the events were tailored to a level appropriate to the audience, these have involved both talks and interactive displays.
I have also been heavily involved in more technologically innovative events that can reach a much wider audience. I was a designated astronomy expert in the national Space Safari initiative where we taught space science remotely to almost 1000 school children in the North of England. I have also played an integral part in the Schome initiative, where we have been teaching school children from across the country (and the U.S.A for a term) in Second Life. One of the highlights of this project for me was helping a group to design a satellite experiment for a competition run by the British National Space Centre. Their entry was short-listed to be developed further. This lead to a trip to the Surrey Satellite Ltd. laboraty, a meeting with the minister of science and an awards ceremony at the International Astronautical Congress (2008).
I have sole responsibility over several public facing websites, including www.ledas.ac.uk, this includes all maintenance and development. This system administrator role means I am one of a small number who have access to and responsibility for all the computer infrastructure in the department.
I was the student representative for the departmental computer policy group at the Open University. This meant that I liaised between the student body and other representatives in the department about the policies affecting the future direction of the departmental Unix system. As part of this role I also wrote the documentation for all the systems in the department.
I was elected to the committee of the post graduate student society (www.open.ac.uk/pgss) for two consecutive years. In this role I liaised with the campus wide student body when issues were raised.
I am a core member of staff in the schome initiative, this places me in a position of trust with regards to the community's well being and identity.
| www.wasp.le.ac.uk/public | This is a portal to the first public data release of the www.superwasp.org project. I designed, built and currently maintain this. There is a lot of server-side programming that had to be developed to enable a large degree of on-the-fly processing of the data. In total over 20 million files are available which take up over 20TB of disk space. |
| www.schome.ac.uk | This is the main website of the schome project - and educational research project hosted by the Open University. I built and maintain the website. It incorporates some static pages along with a forum, wiki and a blog. Further to this scripts were written to interface second life with the website. |
| www.ledas.ac.uk | This is the Leicester Data Archive Service, which is the main European portal to the World's astronomical data. I maintain this and am in the process of upgrading both the hardware and software. |
| www.open.ac.uk/pgss | I was elected web co-ordinator of the post-graduate student society at the Open University for two years. During this time I redesigned, built and maintained the main web presence of the society, this was then where the students could find information about events on campus. |
| www.ollyandbecca.co.uk | This is my personal website where I tend to experiment. |