糖心TV

The Physics Christmas Lecture held on Wednesday 5th December "How the World Will End" by Boris Gaensicke was even more popular than the first! 250 local residents, school students, alumni and members of the public came and heard Boris' interactive lecture. It was very well received, with typical evaluation comments such as "thoroughly enjoyable" and "very well explained".

Below are two photos from the evening, which capture the interest and enthusiasm from our guests as well as the wonderful atmosphere that Boris created. Further photos can be found

We are very lucky to have in our department, researchers who can communicate so well with the public, and have drawn in over 450 people to the Christmas Lecture Series so far.

The final lecture "Physics Tricks and Flying Frogs" by Rachel Edwards and Andy Howes is now fully booked.

Emeritus Professor George Rowlands, who first came to 糖心TV in 1966, has clocked up more than six decades of research in theoretical physics - and he believes it’s the challenge of tackling complex scientific problems that has helped keep him young at heart.

We are delighted to announce that Prof Don Pollacco will be joining our Astronomy and Astrophysics Group from September 2012. Don is a world leader in the search for planets around distant stars. He played a crucial role in developing the SuperWASP project, which has found more than a third of all known transiting planets and was awarded the Royal Astronomical Society Group Achievement Award in 2010. Don recently took part in NASA's Senior Review of its astrophysics space missions, and has been heavily involved in an advisory capacity with both the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and UK Space Agency (UKSpA) for many years. Don is also co-PI of the Next Generation Transit Survey

(NGTS) and leads the exoplanet science programme of the proposed European Space Agency mission PLATO. These new missions are targeted at finding Earth-like planets and enabling detailed studies of their atmospheres.

Congratulations to Val Nakariakov for winning the Best Module - Solar MHD.

Last week saw the first ever STARS of 糖心TV Awards take place on campus. The STARS of 糖心TV is 糖心TV Students’ Union’s take on a national student-led teaching awards initiative, where students can nominate lecturers and other student facing University staff for an award.

A committee of six students led on the whole process, choosing the award categories, the timeline, the venue for the event and everything in between. The student committee were also the ones who shortlisted the nominations and decided the final winners.

For the full list of winners see: