Month: December 2021

#WomenonWednesdays: Su Ann Lim

For our final Women on Wednesdays interview of the term, we’ve talked to Su Ann Lim, a fourth-year student on the MSci Physics with Theoretical Physics course, who is also Secretary of WiP!

Introduce yourself! What do you like to do outside of physics?

My name is Su Ann and I am currently a 4th year undergraduate in the Theoretical Physics course. I’m also the Secretary for the Women in Physics committee this year and I feel so lucky to be part of a community of strong, intelligent women. I come from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and getting the chance to live and study in London for the past 4 years has been amazing! There’s such a wide variety of people here, especially Imperial, so it’s been really nice getting to meet people from so many different cultures. Some things I do when I’m not struggling over my problem sheets are bouldering, listening to k-pop, reading and watching anime!

(more…)

#WomenonWednesdays: Jessie Durk

This week for the series we interviewed Dr. Jessie Durk, Research Associate in the Physics Education Group at the Department and Vice-President of our very own Women in Physics Society!

As a little introduction, what of Physics do you specialize in?

I specialise in physics education, which involves educational psychology, social/cognitive science, and data analysis, as well as knowledge of physics itself to be able to research how students learn different physics topics, and the most effective ways to teach and assess students. I’m currently working on the Strengthening Learning Communities project which aims to improve students’ sense of belonging in the department.

(more…)

#WomenonWednesdays: Julia Stawarz

Today’s interview is with Dr. Julia Stawarz, a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the SPAT group, working in space plasma physics.

As a little introduction, what area of Physics do you specialize in?  

I work in the field of space plasma physics using measurements from spacecraft to study the dynamics of a number of different plasmas in near-Earth space – mainly the fast flow of hot plasma that expands from the Sun (known as the solar wind) and the region of space influenced by Earth’s magnetic field (known as the magnetosphere). Some of the spacecraft that I work with are NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale and Parker Solar Probe missions and ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission (the magnetometer for which was built here at Imperial!). Using this data, I focus on studying some of the fundamental processes that operate in a plasma, including plasma turbulence (the highly-nonlinear, seemingly chaotic dynamics of the plasma) and magnetic reconnection (the sudden release of stored magnetic energy in the plasma into the charged particles), both in terms of understanding how they influence the interaction between the Sun and the Earth and understanding the fundamental physics that may be applicable to other plasmas throughout the Universe.  

(more…)