Profile

I primarily work at the ISOLDE Decay Station (IDS) which is an experimental station at ISOLDE, CERN. ISOLDE uses high energy protons to break apart uranium atoms in a target into thousands of different elements and isotopes. We can choose a particular isotope made in these reactions to separate using a magnetic separator and lasers which is then moved through the ISOLDE experimental hall to various measurement “stations”, each of which is carefully designed to use a particular experimental technique to measure various properties of these atomic nuclei.

IDS can measure the energy of alpha, beta and gamma decays of these isotopes very precisely which allows me and my colleagues to understand the nuclear structure of the nucleus we choose to study. My role within the collaboration is to set IDS up for experiments, write, maintain and upgrade the code we use, and come up with ideas for future improvements. In parallel, I’m performing my own analysis on some data gathered at IDS on the decay of a radioactive isotope of gold and other heavy, neutron rich isotopes near to lead.

I also get involved with other experiments such as ones with the ISOLDE Solenoidal Spectrometer which uses a very strong magnetic field to perform experiments in which radioactive beams react with thin targets. Because of the availability of experimental equipment I get to go abroad with work sometimes. For example, I was in  snowy Jyväskylä in central Finland in February and Chicago in August

Gammasphere is a major experimental setup I worked on at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago in the USA. Prizes go to anyone who knows which Marvel movie it was used in!

The frozen lake of Jyväskylä in central Finland. The day time temperature in the depth of winter here rarely goes above -10 degrees and was down to -25 when I was here