Suzie Sheehy

I moved to Oxford in 2007 from Melbourne, Australia to start my DPhil in particle physics (so you can call me doctor in a few years), and I'm having a wonderful time in this rather rainy little country.

I received my BSc (Hons) in Physics from The University of Melbourne in 2006, working on a physics analysis project on ATLAS (on lepton flavour violation, for the experts) which was my final year project. Currently I work on a project called PAMELA (Particle Accelerator for MEdical Applications) designing a new type of particle accelerator for cancer treatment, using protons and ions such as carbon.

Back in Australia I worked on a programme called The International Physics and Laser Show, which brought physics, lasers and fun to around 50,000 Australian school children whilst I was involved in organising and presenting the show. I also worked at Scienceworks—a hands-on science museum in Melbourne.

As all good things are, the Accelerate! project was dreamt up over a coffee and a chat with Emmanuel Tsesmelis (also originally from Melbourne). siz months later, and here we are! I hope you enjoy Accelerate! and look forward to many more exciting programs in the future!

Andrew Steele

Having completed my undergraduate degree here at Oxford, I decided that being a Master of Physics wasn’t enough. I’m now studying for a DPhil in condensed matter, which sounds scary but is actually just an excuse to play with magnets.

My project involves going to particle accelerators and using particles called muons to detect magnetism in new materials. The accelerator I use most often is actually very close to Oxford at the Rutherford Appleton Lab, but I also use one in Switzerland…sadly not CERN, but a (much!) smaller machine at the Paul Scherrer Institut near Zürich.

When I’m not doing physics, I enjoy playing guitar badly, photographing things and worrying about climate change.

Penny Jackson

I'm a first year DPhil student studying accelerator physics. I'm working on a proposed LHC upgrade around 2013, which involves rebuilding some of the smaller accelerators which feed protons into the LHC. About 50 years ago, CERN's Proton Synchrotron (PS) was the biggest particle accelerator in the world, a couple of decades later it was an injector for the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) and now the PS feeds the SPS which feeds the LHC, and the PS is now struggling to keep up with modern particle physics requirements. I'll be looking at a new machine called the PS2, and replacing or improving a couple of newer but still rather old machines. I'll be working at CERN for a couple of years, and luckily I got my CERN card just in time to get to the LHC startup which was an amazing day.

I did my MSci in Physics with Astrophysics at the University of Bristol, the highlight of which was getting my own radio telescope for a year. I'm originally from Derby where I went to The Ecclesbourne School, amazingly the same as Tim—so if anyone else from Ecclesbourne is reading now you know what you're going to be doing your DPhil in!