Profile

I currently live in Oxfordshire with my friend, Hannah, but my hometown is Derby. At the weekends I either travel to Sheffield to see my boyfriend or to Derby to see my parents. At some point I should probably also visit my sister in Birmingham!

I spend most of my free time at pole fitness and yoga classes, and I would like to take up trapeze, hoop, and silks! I’m also teaching myself to handstand but unfortunately my balance is terrible…

I love trying new food (especially since going vegetarian 🌱) and re-reading the same books over and over again! I’m currently re-reading the Night Circus and would recommend 🙂

At UKAEA in Oxfordshire, we have two tokamaks (JET and MAST-U). These are fusion reactors – not to be confused with fission reactors which we already use in nuclear power stations. In a fusion reactor, hydrogen gas is heated to around 150 million degrees (10 times hotter than the centre of the sun). When the hydrogen atoms get this hot, they begin to combine to form helium – this is called FUSION. When atoms fuse, lots of fusion energy is released.

We are currently running two huge experiments to learn all about the best way to build a tokamak, so we can collect the fusion energy and use it to build a greener, safer power station!

Lots of scientists are running mini experiments on our machines, and they all have very important equipment that can measure exactly what’s happening inside. My job is to learn all about this equipment so I can fix it when it breaks! I also help improve equipment we already have – soon I would like to design my own equipment to run new experiments.

I have included a photo of a mini plasma ball that some previous employees built. It’s a real photo I took – it’s not been edited at all!

I am currently RO (Responsible Officer) for about 6 different projects – this means it is my responsibility to fill out paperwork, talk to physicists and technicians, and to make sure the job gets done. I follow each project from start to finish!

Usually, I begin by checking for updates from everyone I am working with, these could be from scientists, analysists, computer-aided designers, technicians, anyone working on one of my projects. There are normally lots of updates as each of my projects is in a different design stage!

From there my day can go anywhere! I’m also on the Graduate Scheme at UKAEA so I have lots of time for learning on top of my day job. Some days I get to help the technicians do some work on JET, other days I have lots of design meetings with important people, and sometimes I take part in outreach (like I’m doing now!). I like to lead tour groups or go out with the Sun Dome, which is an inflatable planetarium we take to primary schools to talk about fusion!

I’ve added some selfies so you guys can see just how different my days can be! The first is me standing on top of JET (I’m 3 stories up in the air and you can see the orange 150 tonne crane hovering above my head!), the second is my first installation as RO (we installed some monitors on two 1100 tonne moving concrete radiation shields), and the third is my mask fitting to make sure my head wasn’t too small (it wasn’t)!

I would use the money to build and design STEAM crafts and experiments, to take into children’s wards. I think the children who are stuck in hospital while they are ill would really enjoy it!