People doing Physics

Help us get better by taking  our quick survey ! Your feedback will help us understand how we can improve in the future. Thank you for your time. Here’s a question for you dear listener. What’s the link between music and physics? What is the sound of physics? Today we're diving into a fascinating world where art, science, and music intersect. Joining us in our studio are two incredible indivi...

The team is taking a short break and will be back in September with new guests and more physics chats. Stay tuned! While you wait, why not taking 2 minutes to answer a few questions about the podcast and help us get better? People Doing Physics is a podcast produced by the Cavendish Laboratory, the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge. Visit the  Cavendish website and learn mo...

Help us get better by taking  our quick survey ! Your feedback will help us understand how we can improve in the future. Thank you. This is July and the streets of Cambridge burst with sun and excitement as students let a communal sigh of relief now that the academic year is over. This is July, and the time for future students to think about what subject they might be studying when choosing t...

On 16th June, the Cavendish Laboratory will be celebrating its 149th anniversary! To mark this occasion, we wanted to replay one of our previous episodes with one of our longest standing member of staff, Malcolm Longair. Malcolm is the memory of the Department, and his stories are fascinating, so let's jump back in with Simone, Jacob and our guest. We hope you enjoy! If you like this episode, don’...

Help us get better by taking  our quick survey ! Your feedback will help us understand how we can improve in the future. Thank you for your time. Today we're joined by two physicists who have not only distinguished themselves in the sciences but risen to the top of their sporting fields as well. Louise Shanahan is a PhD student in the Atomic Mesoscopic and Optical Physics group, as part of th...

Help us get better by taking  our quick survey ! Your feedback will help us understand how we can improve in the future. Thank you for your time. We are very excited to present a very special episode this month. The podcast has been recorded with a live audience in the Pippard lecture theatre during the Cavendish Festival. For this special episode, we’re joined by Professor Athene Donald, Eme...

Help us get better by taking  our quick survey ! Your feedback will help us understand how we can improve in the future. Thank you for your time. Joining us this month is Dr Sandro Tacchella, Assistant Professor in Extragalactic Astrophysics at the Cavendish and the nearby Kavli Institute for Cosmology. Inspired by astronomy at a young age, Sandro pursued a degree in Physics and threaded a li...

Help us get better by taking  our quick survey ! Your feedback will help us understand how we can improve in the future. Thank you for your time. This is episode 13 of People Doing Physics, the podcast from the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. This month marks our first birthday! One year, 12 guests, each one looking into their very own journey and connection with Physics....

Intro We’re joined today by Prof. Sarah Bohndiek, Professor of Biomedical Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory, Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, and Fellow of Corpus Christi College.  Born in Greenwich, Sarah found an early enthusiasm for science and went on to study Natural Sciences as an undergraduate student at Cambridge University. Drawn to interdisciplinary rese...

Intro We’re joined today by a familiar voice, Dr Paolo Molignini.  Paolo will be leaving us soon, so this month we thought we would give a little insight into one of the people behind the podcast.  Paolo is a postdoctoral research associate in the Theory of Condensed Matter group here at the Cavendish, bringing together elements of nonequilibrium physics, topological phases of matter, qu...

Intro Joining us this month is Dr Tiffany Harte, senior research associate in the group of Prof. Ulrich Schneider here at the Cavendish Laboratory. Tiffany is an experimental physicist who works with ultracold atomic systems. These are gases of neutral elements like Rubidium or Lithium which are cooled down to incredibly low temperatures and used to probe with extreme precision fundamental propert...

Intro With us this month is Prof. Malcolm Longair, CBE, FRS, FRSE (and Munroist). Born in Dundee, in 1941, Malcolm studied Electronic Physics at what is now the University of Dundee, but was then part of St Andrews.  After this, he came down south to the Cavendish, where he completed his PhD as part of the Radio Astronomy Group, supervised by Martin Ryle.  Specialising in high energy ast...

Intro Joining us this month is Dr Diana Fusco, lecturer in biological physics here at the Cavendish Laboratory. Diana is an amazing example of what it means to have an interdisciplinary and curiosity-driven career. Her scientific journey started at the University of Milan, where as an undergraduate, she focused mainly on theoretical and statistical physics. For her doctoral studies at Duke Univers...

Intro Joining us this month is Melanie Tribble, the Cleanroom Manager for the Cavendish Laboratory.  For the last three decades, she has kept the cleanrooms of the Cavendish up and running, going from working with one research group to providing support for the entire laboratory and external companies – ensuring that the ultra-clean environment needed for the creation of modern semiconductors...

Intro Our guest this month is Joanna Piotrowska, a PhD student looking at galaxy formation and evolution in the group of Prof. Roberto Maiolino. By using a mix of observational cosmology and numerical simulations, Joanna is studying how supermassive black holes – the giant black holes thought to reside at the center of every galaxy – can influence star formation, and in particular the mystery of w...

This month, our guest is Stuart Macpherson, Post-doctoral researcher in experimental opto-electronics in the Stranks Lab at the Department of Physics. Stuart’s research focuses on understanding the physics of solar photovoltaics based on perovskite compound, one of the fastest advancing solar technologies of today. Stuart is also the founder of Sustain/Ed, a non-profit organisation that aims to pr...

This month our guest is Tom Sharp, group technician for the Optoelectronics research group here at the Department of Physics, where his day to day involves working closely with scientists to maintain and troubleshoot equipment and ensure a smooth running of the laboratories and facilities. Tom was always drawn to mechanical work growing up, and joined the Cavendish through an apprenticeship 10 yea...

We’re doing things a bit differently this month, welcoming not one but two guests in this episode. Suchitra Sebastian is a professor of Physics at the Cavendish, but like cats, she had more than a few lives before becoming a world-class scientist. And like cats, she moves gracefully between very different worlds. It took time and a few twists and turns before a career in research became a consciou...

Our guest this month is Tina Potter, Professor of High Energy Physics at the Cavendish and expert in the particle physics Beyond the Standard Model. Tina developed a passion for physics at a young age and has always been drawn to big, fundamental questions about the nature of our reality: what is the universe made of? How do its constituents behave? How can we detect them? Her doctorate was when t...

Our guest this month is LOUISE HIRST, Assistant Professor of Physics, and specialist of the development of advanced, high efficiency photovoltaics for space applications like powering satellites and exploring space.  As a teenager and young adult, she contemplated a dual career in music and science, but knew she could not do both so finally decided to push her physics studies, with the idea s...

People Doing Physics is a new podcast from the Cavendish Laboratory (at the University of Cambridge) exploring the personal side of physics. Our first episode launches on 3rd February 2022. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! Follow and connect with the show on Twitter using the hashtag #PeopleDoingPhysics. For more details and episodes notes, visit phy.cam.ac.uk/podcast This podc...