Archive for the ‘CAREERS’ Category

4 May

The Gene Hunter: Dr Aoife McLysaght, TCD

Posted by seanduke in CAREERS, FEATURES, GENETICS, SCIENCE SPIN. Tagged: , , , .


TEDx Dublin 2012

Aoife McLysaght speakingat the TEDx event in Dublin in 2012 [Credit: Science Gallery]

In World War 11 the RAF hired a statistician called Abraham Wald to analyse planes returning from air combat. Metal was scarce, and the idea was to only re-inforce the most vulnerable parts of the planes. The parts of returning aircraft that made it home full of bullets must be the toughest parts, Wald reasoned, and so a decision was made not to re-inforce these areas, but to use the scarce metal to strenghten the other parts of the aircraft.

Dr Aoife McLysaght, geneticist at TCD, understands Wald’s logic and applies it to her own gene hunting efforts. Dr McLysaght  is identifying genes that are most sensitive to being hit with ‘bullets’ – which in genetic terms means being hit with random gene mutations. This is important because it is known that in certain sensitive genes – right across all living species – having too many copies of a particular gene, or too few, can result in a disease.

School

Dubliner, Aoife, attended her local national school before attending St Andrew’s College, on Booterstown Avenue. She recalled that she although there wasn’t too much science taught in primary school, she was very interested and engaged by such science as was on offer. In particular, Aoife remembers presenting a science project with her best friend in sixth class, which involved explaining aspects of the weather to other pupils and teachers.

“I had fun little demonstrations, to do with the power of wind and air,” Aoife recalled. “We had a plastic bag with a book on top of it. We got the opening of the bag and blew into it and showed that it would lift the book. We also had a glass milk bottle, with a baloon on top that was not inflated. We placed the bottle into a jug of really hot water, and the air would expand and inflate the baloon. I remember have loads of fun doing that,” she said.

Her interest in science was strongly established by the time she attended St Andrews. She remembers that she was always engaged with science, and actively listened to the teachers, so that information went in, making life much easier when it came to passing the exams. When the leaving certificate rolled around Aoife chose to do Biology and Chemistry, but not Physics. She believes that was a mistake in hindsight as she always enjoyed physics.

Instead she chose to study geography, because it was regarded as a science subject by the universities. This was a mistake, she says now, because while she enjoyed physical geography – such as explanations of why earthquakes occur – she did not at all like social geography, which for her involved too much memorising of lots of very dull information. Her experience has told her in the years since, that people will succeed at what they enjoy. That was proven when her geography result proved her worst leaving certificate result.

At St. Andrews, she was inspired by the efforts of a great teacher, Dr Nick Frewin, a PhD holder, who taught her science and biology. “He was just really good,” recalled Aoife. “He spent a lot of time clearly explaining things, had well planned lessons, and there was a lot in it beyond the course. He was well liked enough for people to write him letters when he was retiring. When I did genetics, there was a class of 12 people, and three of those have been his [Dr Frewin] students, and [in] the year behind me we had another one,” said Aoife.

The role of the teacher is crucial, says Aoife, and she cited the example of the many people that say they can’t do maths. “The number of people who think they can’t do maths is too high – there are a lot of people that have been put off maths. They stop trying because they think they can’t do maths. The students underestimate their own abilities. Students should allowed have a bit of fun with maths. Games and puzzles for example,” said Aoife.

Recently, Aoife recieved a prestigious European Research Council grant – which are only given to the top tier of scientists in Europe – to try and identify disease causing genes. The aim she said is identify those genes that are vulnerable to changes in quantity. This might involve a reduction in the copies of genes, or too many copies. There is a certain amount of variation in the number of copies of genes between people, and it’s common. However, in some people in certain genes variations in gene quantities increase disease vulnerability.

This is an evolutionary approach to genetics, explained Aoife. The goal is to see which genes have tolerated changes in amount – high or low – over evolutionary time and which have not. The identification of those genes that have proven intolerant to change over evolution can provide a key to which genes are linked to disease today, the reasoning goes. “There is variation in [[gene] copies, because mutations happen,” explained Aoife. “DNA is a chemical that copies itself in cell division, and this is an easy mistake that happens a lot.”

Once the sensitive genes that have been linked to disease have been clearly identified, then it becomes possible to develop better and more precise ways to diagnose disease. Following on from that, if there are improved methods to diagnose disease at an earlier stage, then it should become possible for scientists to develop better disease treatments and therapies.

Communicator

Aoife is also one of the best scientist-communicators in Ireland, and is regularly invited to speak in schools and at public lectures about her work and its implications for society. She believes that it is important that some scientists communicate with the public, but she also acknowledges that although she enjoys this activity, not every scientist will feel the same.

“It is important that some of us do it, and there is support for that. I mean that it is recognised as a valid part of the job. A valid activity, that it is respected. Sometimes people might think it is a trivial activity. I don’t think that. I see science as part of our culture, we should all have access to that. A lot of people love music, but don’t have the intention of being a musician. It’s the same with science – people should have access to it,” she said.

For Aoife, science is about the ability to learn, to deduce, to understand something, even when it is not visible to the naked eye. It involves being able to think long-term, beyond our own lives. Science is exciting, interesting, dynamic, but it is a big mistake to try and push it onto people. It is also a mistake, she believes, for the Irish government, or any government to get too closely involved in deciding how funding for science should be spent. It would be better to fund the best people than to fund certain areas, she said.

She has some advice for young people that might be considering science as a career. “When I was young, I didn’t know you could be a scientist, I didn’t know any scientists. I didn’t know what I would end up being, if I studied science. My mum said to me, do what you enjoy the the job will follow. It’s very optimistic, but I kind of subscribe to that,” she said.

This article was first published in Science Spin, May-June 2013 issue.

4 Mar

The ‘Nano’ Tester: Professor Stefano Sanvito, CRANN

Posted by seanduke in CAREERS, MATERIALS, NANOTECHNOLOGY. Tagged: , , , , .


Professor Stefano Sanvito, Deputy Director of CRANN, pictured here in the Long Library at TCD

Professor Stefano Sanvito, Deputy Director of CRANN, pictured here in the Long Library at TCD [Credit: CRANN]

Lighter, stronger, more fuel-efficient airplanes; more powerful, better targeted drugs, and paper thin high-definition televisions – it has all become possible as scientists became adept at the manipulation of tiny ‘nano’ particles. The possibilities from nanotechnology are exciting, but it crucial that proper safety tests are in place. Professor Stefano Sanvito, Deputy Director of CRANN at TCD, wants Ireland to become a ‘hub’ for such nano testing.

Stefano, as the name suggests, is Italian, and graduated in physics from the University of Milan ‘about 15 years ago’. He was interested in science from when he was ‘very small’, and he has pedigree for the field. His father, who is now retired, was an engineer who worked in the sewing machine industry, while his grandfather worked in R&D for ‘big pharma’.

His interests, while at secondary school, were not only in the sciences, as he also developed a liking for philosophy. In fact, his first choice of career was to become a writer, and towards that end, he applied to study at the renowned Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. The standards for entry to the Scuola were, and are, high, with only about 6% of applicants gaining entry. Stefano didn’t make it, and then focused on his other big interest – physics.

He gained entry to the University of Milan to study physics and maths, but that was easy part. Though some 500 fellow students were also admitted at the same time, only about 50 of them would later pass the exams at the end of the year and make it into second year. It was a brutal ‘sink or swim’ test for the mainly teenage group of students. Stefano recalled that there was no help provided, no structure for students, and the pressure was immense.

He found the going extremely tough, especially the lab work, yet he passed his exams. That first year in college wasn’t at all enjoyable, as the work needed to get into the top 10% of the class was huge, while most of the physics course was of the ‘old school’ variety. It wasn’t until 3rd year, when began studying modern physics, and areas such as quantum mechanics, that things began to get interesting for him, and his talent found expression.

He doesn’t recall any event in particular that triggered a flourishing of interest in science at any stage of his life, but he did have a mentor, while at university that was a big influence on him. This was his fourth year supervisor, who oversaw his final year undergraduate project. He was a difficult man to deal with on a personal level, recalled Stefano, but he was a stimulating character and a talented high-energy scientist. Certainly, he might well have been a difficult colleague, said Stefano, but as a supervisor and scientist, he was fantastic. He also gathered around him many big names of science, which made things even better.

The final university year was an enjoyable experience thanks to his colourful, difficult supervisor. Then, with his degree in his pocket, he looked around for his next option. He wanted to continue in research, and do a PhD, but he wanted to do it outside Italy, and preferably in an English-speaking country. He chose to go to the UK, where he secured support from the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) to study ‘giant magneto-resistance’.

Military matters

The force called giant magneto-resistance was discovered in 1988 – independently, yet at the same time – by research groups led by Albert Fert and Peter Grunberg. The two men were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2007 for the finding. The term describes how the resistance of certain materials to electrical current drops dramatically as a magnetic field is applied. The word ‘giant’ was tagged on to ‘magneto-resistance’ part because the scientists wanted to describe something that was a much larger effect on current than anything that had ever been seen in metals. This giant magneto force has since been used to improve the storage capacity of computer disks, car sensors, and many other devices.

The MOD wanted to use giant magneto-resistance forces to develop a new ‘solid state’ compass, and that’s why they funded Stefano’s PhD into this area. A solid state compass is a small compass found now in clocks or mobile phones that are typically built using two or three ‘magnetic field sensors’ that pick up the Earth’s magnetic readings, and send that data to a microprocessor. They can provide a very accurate positioning method.

Stefano’s PhD was awarded by the University of Lancaster, but he spent two out of three years working towards his doctorate based at an MOD site near Malvern, Worcestershire, a town of about 28,000 people located approximately halfway between Birmingham and Bristol. This site was home to the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, the group that had famously developed the radar, which helped the RAF win its life or death struggle with the Luftwaffe in the 1940 ‘Battle of Britain’. The group had moved from the south of England to Malvern in 1942, where they worked under the protection of the 600-metre tall Malvern Hills. The British had, by 1942, become concerned about the threat of a ballistic missile attack on its military bases in southern England from Nazi- Occupied Belgium.

At Malvern, Stefano did ‘atomistic simulations’ for ‘sandwiches’ of different materials. In other words he analysed how magnetic affected current running through various materials. It was possible to get a different current in a material when the magnetic ‘configuration’ changed. This Nobel Prize in Physics in 2007 was awarded to Fert and Grunburg for being the first to demonstrate that an electrical current could be hugely changed by changing the magnetism of a magnet. This knowledge was used to build improved computer disk drives, and today every computer or disk drive is based on this principle, in a market worth $ 7 billion. It’s an example, said Stefano, of how basic research can lead to economic gains.

American dream

After his stint in Britain, Stefano was very keen to follow a long held dream to work as a scientist in the USA. He felt the best time to do that was after the PhD, and as a post-doctoral researcher. “There is excellent science in Europe, but there is a ‘can do’ attitude in the US that has no match anywhere in the world – maybe Israel – and I wanted to see that in action,” said Stefano. He applied and was accepted to do research at the ‘top 10’ listed University of Southern California Santa Barbara, and found it “the absolute best place”.

He found the scientific culture to be fantastic, the climate was superb, the mountains and sea were nearby, he was mingling with Nobel Prize winners – USC Santa Barbara had three winners in his few short years there alone – and his office was 100 metres from the beach. He spent two and a half years living out his California dream and while in the lab he was working on putting magnetic impurities into semi-conductors and seeing what happened.

Ireland calling

California would be hard to top, but his next move was crucial, as, after the post-doc Stefano was seeking his first staff job as a scientist. He researched the options, and saw an ad for an opportunity to work at the CRANN Institute at TCD in Dublin where he knew a renowned researcher was based – Professor Michael Coey. The package was attractive in terms of equipment, funding and personnel resources. The couple were keen too, to return to Europe, any part of Europe, in order to raise their family. Ireland seemed a good bet.

In 2006, Stefano and his wife, and two boys moved to Dublin, where he was appointed as Associate Professor in Physics, later becoming Deputy Director of CRANN in 2009. He began working closely with Professor Coey, but set up his own research group. Stefano’s group was focused on investigating the properties of nano materials. More and more companies were making nano-devices, and using nano-materials, and he developed a testing service, based on unique mathematical algorithms built into simulation software programmes, which are available to download, for companies located all over the globe.

“I have to admit that I moved to Ireland because of serpendity,” said Stefano, who is now well settled here with his family. “I wanted to move back to Europe, and my position at Trinity was the first one I could secure. However, I probably wouldn’t have moved to any other place in Ireland except Trinity because of the reputation. A second factor to steer my decision was SFI [Science Foundation Ireland]. SFI essentially started those days and it was clear that they could provide great opportunities for young scientists. I am afraid that this is not the case any longer,” added Stefano.

Ireland had a good reputation in science when Stefano arrived here seven years ago, but he said hard won reputations can be easily lost. “What really differentiate good and bad places academically is the reputation. Of course other things matter, but the reputation of a place, or your colleagues, of the commitment of the state and the society is what makes a University attractive. It takes ages to construct a reputation, and it takes very little to lose it.”

Future

As for the future, Stefano belives that nano researchers will become increasingly able to systematically predict new materials and new material complexes ahead of experiments. Nano science will not stop there, of course, and be believes the next stage after that will involve researchers making predictions about materials with applications in mind. For example, scientists might predict a new material – that does not yet exist – for making magnets that can be used in electrical moters. Then people will make it in the laboratory. These new materials will be predicted and designed using computers, and new software.

This means an age of vastly superior new materials – designed exactly for purpose – lies ahead of us. Tehse new materials will need to be tested before they can be applied in the real world. CRANN is already known for its ability to simulate tests on nanomaterials, and Stefano wants to extend that expertise to a range of new nanomaterials coming online. This can help manufacturers by proving whether certain nano materials are really up to scratch, whether they will work in nano-devices, while also assuring the public about ‘nano safety’.

First published in the March 2013 edition of Science Spin.

23 Jan

The Energy Saver: Jean Malone, Siemens Ireland

Posted by seanduke in CAREERS, ENGINEERING, RENEWABLE ENERGY. Tagged: , , , .


Jean Malone, pictured above, has found career success at Siemens Ireland as Manager of its Dublin-based Energy Centre

As fuel costs rise, industry must find ways to reduce its energy costs in the short-term and introduce efficiencies that protect it against future price hikes. The Energy Centre at Siemens Ireland is helping customers all over the world – from Cork to China – to do that, and heading up this operation is TCD engineering graduate Jean Malone (2006).

The Centre in Ireland is set to be at the heart of Siemens’ strategy to be a strong local partner to its customers by providing energy savings for them despite the relentless rise in fuel costs as the demand for fuel increases, and the taxes on their use – greenhouse gas taxes – likewise increase. At the heart of this is Jean Malone and she is proud of what’s been achieved so far for Ireland.

‘We are gearing up at the moment.” said an excited Jean. “Our system can handle a couple of hundred customers right now, but we are planning to add around 1,000 new customers per year.” Siemens Ireland is engaging with local branches of Siemens in Turkey, the Czech Republic, Italy, Holland, Portugal as well as Germany, and as far away as Chengdu in China, to help a new manufacturing plant.

‘Human’ engineering

Jean, who is from Clane in Co Kildare, recalls loving maths, technical graphics and all the technical subjects when she was in secondary school. She was specifically drawn to the medical device sector, as it combined engineering with some direct human benefits. However, after her Leaving Certificate in 2001, she decided that it would be best to select a general engineering course to begin with, and she chose engineering at TCD.

She enjoyed college life at TCD, but after Jean completed her second year, she began to have some doubts as to whether engineering had been a good idea. “The course was tough, but rewarding – but I couldn’t foresee what my future job or career would be like,” recalled Jean. “I wasn’t sure if it was right for me – and I took a year out between 3rd and 4th year.” She needed some time and space to go travel, and figure out exactly what she wanted to do. Her parents were okay, she said, but wanted her to do work experience, for at least part of the time she was out of college. She agreed to do that.

Jean applied, and was accepted to do six weeks of work experience at a company called Chiroxia, based at Citywest, which had been set up by Jim Coleman, a vascular surgeon, who had returned from the US full of ideas for various kinds of medical devices. The company employed engineers to realize Coleman’s vision. It was an exciting place to work, and Jean immediately felt at home there, and enjoyed her work immensely.

Her profile at the company increased when she observed a particular behavior of a substance – at high and low temperatures – that was being prepared for insertion into the human body, which hadn’t been observed by any of the full time engineers at Chiroxia. This was a technical breakthrough for the company, which led to some design changes.

Jean was offered a nine-month contract, which she accepted. In that time she applied knowledge that she had learned in her first three years of college. This work experience changed everything, and any doubts she had about a career in engineering disappeared. “I went back to do my final year full of energy. I was so excited about the topic when I got back, and it completely changed how I viewed the course as well,” said Jean.

Crash response

When the Irish property market crashed ‘almost overnight’ the Irish arm of Siemens AG – the massive engineering and electronics corporation, headquartered in Munich, and employing 370,000 people in some 190 countries – started to look at how existing, or old buildings could be improved or upgraded, as the ‘new build’ market had evaporated.

Siemens put a toe in this market when they developed an energy efficiency plan for a large Ireland-based customer. The idea was to conduct a complete ‘audit’ of the energy usage at the customer’s manufacturing plant. This was done by strategically placing energy meters at key locations in the production plant, and gathering a data stream. That data was then  looked at by a team of energy engineers at Siemens Ireland, who made recommendations to the customer on how to improve energy efficiency.

Siemens Ireland decided to set up an Energy Centre locally, so that this large customer could go online at any stage and look at how it was consuming energy. Once the Centre was up and running, it made sense to offer similar services to other companies base in Ireland.  Eventually, what had started as a local R&D project attracted the interest of Siemens HQ in Germany, who have supported the development of the Centre to provide energy efficiency services for its customers across Europe and beyond.

Success at Siemens

Jean completed her degree at TCD in 2006. After that she worked briefly as a waitress in Belfast before returning home to Co Kildare, where she lived again with her parents for a short time and got a temporary position with Green Isle Foods in Naas. She was glad to be back home, but was keen for a job that would allow her to live more independently.

She started to look for work in Dublin, and an opportunity came up with Siemens. Initially, her job involved working with customers to identify the exact product that they required; to help them find the right product, and the correct complementary products. The idea was to refer customers to websites and give them the skills and knowledge to be able to source new parts themselves.  She did that successfully and then moved on.

The next role was more interesting, as it involved working with a customer to develop an energy efficiency solution. First, Jean worked with a sales person to design a solution suited to the customer’s energy needs, then she worked with a project manager who would roll out the solution for them. It was a challenging, diverse and interesting job.

It also helped Jean’s career and she was offered the role of Siemens Energy Centre Manager. In this role she deals with some very large customers in Ireland, in energy intensive sectors such as pharma, chemicals, food and leisure. The Irish Centre is also responsible for meeting the energy needs of Siemens’ customers based in Britain and Northern Ireland, as well as a growing number of customers across Europe and beyond.

“I enjoy the diversity of the role, each site different challenges, and you have to adapt to those challenges,” said Jean. “Within Siemens there are so many different opportunities. I do enjoy the idea of working towards something that will create more jobs for engineers in Ireland. We have a plan to expand and we have just taken on 4 new people recently under the Job Bridge scheme,” she added.

This article was first published in Science Spin, Issue 56, January-February 2013

1 May

TCD’s Ant Man: Dr Colby Tanner

Posted by seanduke in CAREERS, ZOOLOGY. Tagged: , , , , , .


Despite what this picture taken at Dublin Airport suggests, ants are rare in Ireland, and, experts believe, they are becoming rarer (Credit: Jen)

Ants are members of the group of social insects (insects that live together in large colonies) which includes bees and termites. They are fascinating creatures to study.

They organise their societies with precision, every individual has a clear role, they are brilliant builders, ferocious in defending their interests, and have incredible physical and sensory abilities.

Dr Colby Tanner, ant researcher based at the TCD Theoretical Ecology Group would certainly agree that ants are fascinating.

Colby has been working recently in the University of Lausanne with a group using infra-red as a way to track individual ants, in order to  find out exactly where they go and what they do, within the colony.

LISTEN: Interview with Colby Tanner

Broadcast on Science Spinning on 103.2 Dublin City FM on 26-04-2012

25 Nov

Microelectronics in Ireland – The future is bright

Posted by seanduke in CAREERS, ENGINEERING. Tagged: , , , , , .


Credit: Microelectronics Competence Centre Ireland

The Irish economy might be on its knees, but here and there, there are some signs of hope. One of our brightest hopes is for the continued success of the microelectronics industry here.

Microelectronics is all about the tiny components we put into our beloved modern devices to make them work better, such as microchips for our laptops, SIM cards for our mobile phones, and ID chips on our laser cards.

Ireland is very good at doing this, and the industry here is made up of a mixture of global giants such as Intel, which, of course, make computer chips, to vibrant indigenous companies.

And, crucially, the sector is still creating jobs, hundreds of them, and will continue to do so over the next few years.

Listen: Interview with Mike Mulqueen, of the Microelelectronics Industry Design Association

This interview was broadcast on 103.2 Dublin City FM on 24.11.2011

This week, 21st to 25th November is Microelectronics Week in Ireland.

21 Nov

The ‘Cyber Policewoman’

Posted by seanduke in CAREERS, INTERNET. Tagged: , , , .


 Source: saidaonline.com

The sophistication of online criminals is increasing all the time, and their activities extend beyond fraud and theft, into sinister areas such as paedophilia and cyber terrorism.

It is important, therefore, to understand the psychology of the online criminal, as well as that of their potential victims, and this is the work of Dr Grainne Kirwan, a cyberpsychologist based at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology.

LISTEN: Interview with Cyberpsychologist, Dr Grainne Kirwan

Broadcast, 10th November 2011, on Science Spinning on 103.2 Dublin City FM

10 Nov

What’s it like to be an astronaut?

Posted by seanduke in CAREERS, SPACE. Tagged: , , , .


Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang, pictured here, will speak in Dublin during science week 2011

Ever wonder what it would be like to be an astronaut? To be the first person from your country to go into space? To conduct a spacewalk outside your spacecraft, while watching planet Earth passing by below?

Christer Fuglesang, from Sweden, pictured on the right, is one of the most experienced astronauts in Europe. He has participated in two space shuttle missions, and five spacewalks, and is the first person outside of the USA or the Russian/Soviet space programmes to participate in more than three spacewalks.

He is in Dublin next week for science week, and he will be talking about his adventures in space in Belvedere College, Dublin 1 on Thursday of next week, the 17th November from 6:30 to 7:30.

LISTEN: Interview with Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang

For more details on this talk, or on science week, visit www.scienceweek.ie

10 May

The Volcanologist

Posted by seanduke in CAREERS, GEOLOGY, SCIENCE SPIN. Tagged: , , , , , .


Studying maths and maths physics as an undergraduate at UCD led Chris Bean into exciting and unexplored directions, such as finding himself atop a volcano in Costa Rica, being interviewed by a TV crew, as he ‘listened in’ to a volcano.

Neither of Chris’s parents were scientists, and rather there was a strong interest in classical music in the house. He did a lot of music as a boy, and for a time he might have thought that his ultimate destiny was to be a classical musician. The boarding school he went to for a time specialised in music, but, he changed schools after the Junior Certificate when he realised that he was not going to follow a career in music.

UCD Volcanologist, pictured here, at work ‘in the field’ in Tenerife, with a volcanic crater in the background (Credit: Chris Bean)

The first time Chris recalls being interested in science was as a young boy, watching the historic 1969 moon landings. His father got him out of bed to watch the events unfold on what he remembers as a very speckly black and white TV. He was totally captivated – hooked – and he followed all the other Apollo missions in detail.

The interest in science continued from there, and by the time he was in 6th year in school he had begun to develop an interest in the Earth and its natural processes. That interest was triggered at that time  by visits to the geology museum at TCD.

A  friend of Chris’s was interested in physical geography – the study of the Earth’s natural features – and his friend’s brother was studying physics in TCD. “We used to go down there to hang out after school in 6th year to play snooker, sometimes popping into the geology department for a look around,” recalls Chris. “Yes, officially we probably shouldn’t have been there! but nobody ever tried to stop us.”

SCHOOL

At primary school there wasn’t much science taught, he recalls. This was before there was a proper science curriculum at primary level. There were nature studies, but even that was “on the light side”. He remembers being interested in the physical aspect of geography, learning about rivers and so on, but it’s a bit hazy, he says. Primary school students today have a more interesting programme he believes.

Nevertheless, by the time he entered second level his interest in science was gaining strength, and after completing the Junior Cert he decided to take physics for the Leaving Certificate. He went to two different secondary schools, St Finian’s in Mullingar, a school renowned for music, but that also had good science labs, and later to Synge Street in Dublin’s south inner city – a school with a great reputation for science and has produced several winners of the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition over the years.

COLLEGE

After leaving school he decided to go to UCD to study science and his chosen subjects in his first year were physics,  maths and maths physics. There was no clear career path in his mind at this point, he just ‘followed his nose’ and did what he was interested in doing.

He loved the college experience, and enjoyed it much more than school. There was much more freedom, and it was much more open, he says, in terms of the learning experience. It required taking control of things for yourself, but that’s a good thing, he says, and college is a fantastic experience for students that “fully engage” with it.

By now, he found himself watching Earth Science documentaries on television and he realised he was interested in using maths as a way to study how the Earth’s natural processes, such as volcanoes and earthquakes, work. He started down this road by doing an M.Sc. in Applied Geophysics at NUI Galway. Next he did a PhD at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) and he  spent a lot of time in Karlsruhe University in Germany as part of that. This was a really exciting time for Chris, doing research and travelling the world to present his finding at various conferences. Some of the people he met abroad during this time are still among his best friends.

JOB

Chris says that he was “pretty lucky” to get a job at UCD immediately after he finished his PhD at the DIAS. Since then he has also had several visiting positions in France, Spain and the US. One of the great things, of course, about being a scientist – up to now at least! – has been that it offers the chance to work and live abroad, meet new people and learn about different cultures and countries, but still then still be able to come back to a job in Ireland afterwards.

In terms of his work, Chris says that he studies several aspects of geophysical science, that is the physics of the Earth in all its aspects. This includes learning about volcanoes, says Chris. Volcanoes are interesting, he says because we don’t know how they work. The goal is to figure out how volcanoes actually work, which is not to be confused, he says, with describing how they seem to be working.

The volcano work involves going to exciting places and collecting data on volcanoes. It also involves lots of computer simulations of volcano processes. Chris and his colleagues develop new models and write their own software to apply these models.

The work on volcanoes is interesting, but it can also be dangerous, even fatal. Some of Chris’s colleagues were killed in the 1993 eruption on Galeras, Columbia, but he says, such deaths are very unusual. He doesn’t worry too much about the dangers, but neither is he reckless. He cancelled a field experiment due to take place on a volcano in Costa Rica last year, as he was not happy about the safety arrangements.

He also likes to make the point that there is more to geophysics than studying hazards such as volcanoes and earthquakes. There are aspects that are important to civil engineering and building projects, mineral exploration, petroleum exploration, and, increasingly, in the renewable energy area.

ADVICE

Science is exciting, and fun, but like most things it requires dedication adn there is no quick or easy route to success. For someone that is very interested in science, then a career in science can be very rewarding, says Chris.

“The best thing is that fundamentally you are searching for ‘the truth’, for how things work and fit together,” says Chris.

“If you are doing your job properly you will be open to changing your ideas as new evidence requires and you certainly will not toe the partly line, instead you will think independently. The worst thing is that it is hard to switch off. When you walk out of the office your job often walks with you with stuff swirling around in your head.”

In terms of monetary rewards, he says that scientists might have been exploited somewhat in the past because they were so committed to their jobs.

This meant that they didn’t have to be incentivised financially, as a lot of them were driven first and foremost to discover new knowledge.

The upside of this, he says, is that science must therefore be a career with very high levels of job satisfaction, as people are not going into it for purely financial reward.

This situation might be changing, said Chris, and the future looks bright for science.

The best advice he would give is to for students to do what they love best.

“Do law or medicine of you are really interested in law or medicine,” he says. “If you are interested in science and creative new discoveries, do science and it can lead you so some very strange and interesting places.”

“When I was an undergraduate, I never realistically thought that I would be hiking up volcanoes in Costa Rica and getting paid to do it.”

This article was first published in the May-June ed. of Science Spin

4 May

THE ATOM SPLITTER: Ernest Walton

Posted by seanduke in CAREERS, IRELAND'S GREATEST, PHYSICS, SCIENCE SPIN. Tagged: , , , , .


In 1932, aged 29, Waterford-born Ernest Walton, pictured here on the right, did something remarkable – he split the atom, or the atomic nucleus to be more precise, and the news stunned the world.
This colossal event in the history of science took place in Cambridge, UK, in the Cavendish Laboratory, a world-famous laboratory run by Lord Ernest Rutherford, a New Zealander. Rutherford had won a Nobel Prize for physics in 1908 and was a huge figure in science in general and nuclear physics in particular.
Walton, meanwhile, was a brilliant apparatus man, a hands-on physicist, and he had personally built the particle accelerator machine that enabled the nucleus to be split. He worked closely with John Cockcroft, who was a theoretician. They were a perfect team. Cockcroft proved it could be done, and Walton then went and did it.

Newspapers around the world reported the news, and the Albert Einstein himself called to the Cavendish Lab to congratulate Walton and Cockcroft.

For Einstein, this experiment was the first solid evidence to support his famous equation e = mc2 which held that energy and mass were linked, and that it was possible to release enormous amounts of energy – if mass could be split apart.

EXPERIMENT 
The key to the success of the famous atom splitting experiment was perhaps the inspired decision by Lord Rutherford, Head of the Cavendish, to pair the hands-on Walton, with the theoretician Cockcroft.

Rutherford, recognised the talents of the two young geniuses at his disposal, and put them together. They were very different, but complimented each other.

At this time, The Cavendish and other labs, particularly in the US were in a race to see who could split the atomic nucleus first. The general thinking at the time was that particles, protons would need to be accelerated to very high speeds, at astronomically high electrical voltages – perhaps as high as one million volts – to make it possible for them to slam into atomic nuclei and split them.

Walton had done his PhD in the generation of high voltages and this was a continuation of that work. He got the voltage up towards 800,000 volts and they decided they would try and experiment and see what happened.

Walton got the machine going and crawled back across the floor of the lab towards a lead-roofed observation box – to protect against x-rays and high voltages. The protons were being slammed into a piece of lithium metal and he took at look now at the impact. He immediately began seeing little flashes.

He was elated, as the flashes, he knew could be an indication that the lithium atoms were being split into two helium nuclei, also known as ‘alpha particles’ which had been first discovered by Rutherford himself three decades earlier. Walton immediately called Cockcroft to come, he knew something was happening. He later described what looked like ‘twinkling stars’ – lots of them.

Cockcroft arrived, and Rutherford then appeared. The two younger men manoeuvred Rutherford into the small observation hut, which wasn’t easy, as he was a big man, it was a tight space, and, at this stage, the great man, wasn’t young either.

Philip, Ernest’s son, and himself a Professor of Physics at NUI Galway (recently retired) recalled what his father told him happened next. “He (Rutherford) was shouting out instructions – ‘turn up the voltage’, ‘turn down the voltage’ and whatnot. He got out, and without saying anything at first, he walked across the room, perched himself on a stool and said: “Those look mighty like alpha particles to me – I should know, as I was in at their birth.”

The atomic age had begun.

FIGURE 
Walton was an unlikely figure to be thrown into the media maelstrom that occurred after the 1932 experiment. It changed his life forever, and at a time when most scientists are only getting their careers started he had reached his pinnacle.

He was a strongly religious man all his life –  the son of a Methodist preacher who had travelled all over Ireland and lived in many towns on both sides of the border, including Cookstown, Bambridge, Dungarvan, Armagh and Drogheda.

Sunday’s were for religious service and nothing more, whereas every other day was all about work. He was also a non-drinker, with a few close, loyal friends.

He had attended Methodist College in Belfast as a border, where he was ‘Head Boy’ and he had developed a strong affection, which was returned for the school’s ‘Head Girl’, Breda. After they left school they went their separate ways, but after a chance meeting the relationship was re-ignited and the letters flew back and forth.

He returned to Ireland in 1934, not least because he wanted to marry Breda, who was working as a teacher in Waterford. They were duly married in Dublin, and set about raising a family from their home in St Kevin’s Park, in Dartry, Dublin 6.

Walton returned from Cambridge to head up an ailing Physics department, with just three staff. His workload was huge in terms of administration, and teaching. This all mean that from the time he returned Ireland, to TCD, he did little research.

He died in 1995, aged 92, and is remembered fondly by his colleagues and family as a quiet man, who had no interest in the limelight. Often he would sit in the staff room at TCD quietly humming a tune, when a visitor would come in, and be stunned to be introduced to Ernest Walton, the giant of Physics that split the atom.

Many students will remember him as a brilliant teacher, who often performed experiments on the bench, in front of the students during a physics lecture. His son Philip, the recently retired Professor of Physics at NUI Galway, recalls that his father spent many long hours in the attic at home, after dinner, preparing his lectures.

Others will remember him at the Young Scientist Exhibition in the RDS for many years, when he could be found in teacher mode surrounded by an enraptured audience. For ETS Walton, teaching was a very important part of the scientist’s job.

To this day he remains the only Irishman who has been awarded a Nobel Prize in any field of science. That was in 1951, 22 years after the atomic nuclei was split.

This article was first published in the May-June issue of Science Spin

How Irish Scientists Changed the World, by Seán Duke, is due for publication by Londubh Books in 2012.

3 May

What attracts people to a career in science?

Posted by seanduke in CAREERS, EDUCATION, YOUNG SCIENTISTS. Tagged: , , , .


Laura Brennan and Megan Oliver, pictured here, Transition Year students at Dominican College Drumcondra, wanted to discover the factors that attract and turn people off to science as a career. 

Why do some people want to become scientists, while others avoid science subjects in school at all costs?

Laura Brennan and Megan Oliver, Transition Year students at Dominican College Drumcondra, north Dublin, sought some answers to these important questions.

Both Laura and Megan are keen on science, and come from a school that is keen on science, judging by the number of projects at the BT Show in January this year from Dominican College. They are also at a crucial juncture in education, as they are about to enter the Leaving Cert cycle and need to make subject choices that will influence their careers.

The girls are ideally placed to judge what it is they like about science, what it is that others don’t like about science, and how can science be made a more attractive option for students at secondary level. The government should pay attention to their findings.

‘NERDY’

The first thing they are keen to ‘put to bed’ is the notion that teenagers are turned off science because of the perception that it is ‘nerdy’ and not something for the ‘cool’ set. They found, in their survey of their peers, that 80 per cent plus were not in the least put off by the perception of science as nerdy. One urban myth shattered then.

The reasons that science is not attractive to many, they believe, have more to do with the perception among some students that science is not relevant to their daily lives. For example, the students said, the group of students disaffected with science, don’t see why an understanding of the atom and its parts, has any relevance to their lives.

Another problem is that science is perceived as being hard, and that it is hard to get into university to study science subjects. This perception doesn’t stand up, said Laura and Megan, and they compared journalism and science at DCU. In 2010, they said, it took about 375 points to get in to study on a science course, while the journalism course was far more difficult to get into with, as it required 445 points. If people knew that it wasn’t so hard to get in to science in college, more might aim for it they said.

It was once the case that girls’ schools didn’t do science subjects, or perhaps only biology, and while things have changed in recent years, things are still not ideal for girls interested in science. They said there was not technology or technical graphics on offer at their school, while both were available at the boys’ school up the road. A lot more girls would be interested in technology than home economics, they said.

Ireland can learn from other countries in the teaching of science, the girls believe. For example, in Sweden, students have 800 hours of taught science per year, whereas Irish students do 600 hours. That extra exposure makes a big difference, the girls believe.

It is vital, the girls believe, that greater effort is made to spark an interest in science, and how the world works generally in students at a young age, before secondary school. For example, they said, people like to know how things work, so perhaps one way for primary teachers to ignite an interest in science would be to take things apart, such as a clock, and demonstrate how the pieces interact to make the clock tell time.

Also, it is important that students are taken out of the classroom situation more, and shown how science is relevant to their lives. For example, a trip to a science museum, or some other place could demonstrate the importance of science to all of us, they say.

The girls have some specific suggestions to increase the numbers of people taking science subjects at second level, as well as wanting to do science as a career.

Some suggestions from the students to encourage more people to aim for a career in science:

  • Science should be mandatory up to the Junior Certificate. At the moment it is possible for students to pass through secondary school without doing any science whatsoever.
  • There should be less Biology and more Physics and Chemistry on the Junior Certificate curriculum to encourage more interest in the latter two subjects.
  • There should be at least one 40 minute class per week dedicated to understanding the mathematics behind a scientific concept, and vice versa.
  • There should be less emphasis on rote learning and more on understanding.
  • Girls should be encouraged to take science subjects, and especially honours maths as many might still not be confident enough to sign up for these subjects.
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