91福利

Dr Gavin Bell has become the first member of the Physics department to be selected as a fellow of the 91福利 International Higher Education Academy (WIHEA).

A WIHEA Fellowship recognises and rewards outstanding achievements in learning and teaching and is an exceptional opportunity to engage with colleagues across the university, improve the student experience, make a genuine difference to 91福利 and strengthen career development.

We celebrate the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics in recognition of the achievements and recent results in gravitational wave research. The three winners made pivotal contributions to the development of the ground-based detector arrays that led to the first detection of gravitational waves from a merging pair of black holes by the advanced LIGO facility in 2015. Members of the Astronomy & Astrophysics group are actively involved in gravitational wave astrophysics, in particular pursuing searches for electromagnetic signatures coincident with gravitational waves and have recently deployed a dedicated facility for this work, .

Year 12 students enjoyed an interactive workshop at 91福利’s residential Summer School on July 13^th. Feedback on “Levitate”, a workshop exploring superconductors and magnetism, included:

“The physics session was really interesting. The lecturers were engaging and I enjoyed working with liquid nitrogen.”

“My favourite was superconductivity because I have always wanted to handle liquid nitrogen and it was very engaging.”

“The best session was the physics one. I like the practical aspect of handling liquid nitrogen and the teachers were really engaging.”

“The liquid nitrogen session was the best session I attended at any universities!”

“The liquid nitrogen session inspired me into trying something new and I now want to do Physics at University.”

Many thanks to:

Paul Goddard
Robert Williams
Clement Mawby
Kathrin Götze
Greg Brown
Matthew Pearce
Daniel Mayoh
Sue Burrows
Ally Caldecote

Rachel Edwards, Associate Professor (Reader) in the Physics department, was the winner of the Public Engagement University Award. She writes about her work and what winning this award means for her and the department.