Organising Committee

Andy O’Bannon (Chair)

I am a Royal Society University Research fellow in the Southampton High Energy Physics group. My research uses a technique from string theory called holographic duality to understand the properties of strongly coupled systems. I was the chair of our department’s Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion committee before stepping down to lead the organsation of CUWiP 2021. In 2015 I was at the University of Oxford when they hosted the first UK CUWiP, and saw first-hand the immediate impact the conference had on the participants. We hope this year’s CUWiP will be just as inspirational, if not more so!

Deni Bankova

I am a second year PhD student in the Soft Photonic Systems group. My research interests include modelling liquid crystals and analysing their electro-optic response. I combine modelling and experiments to contribute to the development of new photo-addressable liquid crystal systems.

Jonathan Flynn

I am in our high energy physics research group, using supercomputer simulations of quantum chromodynamics (the strong interactions of quarks and gluons) to compare theory with experiment. This tests the Standard Model of particle physics and can reveal clues to new physics beyond. I was our Head of Department from 2015 to 2019 and have previously been our director of undergraduate teaching. I am one of
the department’s Senior Tutors. Everything I’d heard about the positive impacts of previous CUWiPs encouraged me to serve on the local organising committee for the CUWiP in Southampton.

Ceris French

My name is Ceris French and I am the Senior Administrator for Physics and Astronomy. I have worked in the department for just under 17 years and I enjoy supporting the Head of School, other academics, PGR and UG students. I support the students who take part in our Flagship course, Physics with a Year Abroad, when they visit Harvard University. I am also involved in organising the visit to Tenerife for the astronomy students and staff that takes place every year. Unfortunately, neither of these has been able to happen this last year. I have experience of event planning, arranging conferences, seminars and training courses both internal and at external locations. I have a team of two other administrators who both work hard to support the 3 main research groups, Quantum, Light and Matter, Particle Physics and Astronomy. I have been a member of the Local Organising Committee for the CUWiP Conference this year and support them with taking minutes, setting up meetings and helping with some of the practical arrangements. I am looking forward to seeing CUWiP 2021 take place on line next year and continue to support the committee.

Imogen Gingell

I am a Royal Society University Research Fellow in Southampton’s Astronomy group. As a space plasma physicist, I study the complex interaction between the solar winds ejected from the Sun and Earth’s magnetic field. My current research focuses on shock waves that form between Earth and the solar wind – one piece of the space weather puzzle! I am a member of the department’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee and the university’s Pulse network for LGBTQ+ staff, and I couldn’t be happier to be helping to bring CUWiP to Southampton as part of the local organising committee.

Andreas JĂĽttner

I am in the Southampton High Energy Physics Group where my research concentrates on better understanding the fundamental constituents of nature. My particular focus is on simulations of the strong force on state-of-the-art supercomputers, the results of which are used together with results coming in from experiments (e.g. at the LHC@CERN) to test the Standard Model of particle physics. More recently I also started working on the physics of the early universe by combining supercomputer simulations of quantum field theories with ideas from string theory. I am Director of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Next Generation Computational Modelling and love teaching Quantum Physics to our year-2 students. I am always puzzled why so few women are studying physics. I hope that helping out at CUWiP 2021 in Southampton on the local organising committee will contribute to change this over time.

Michelle Limbert

I have spent much of my career in France (Aix-en Provence, Toulouse and Angers) teaching and supporting student career development activities. I later embarked on a journey working with the European Commission supporting UK industry internationalisation activities. More recently, for the University of Southampton I have focussed on “Impact” including employer engagement, knowledge transfer and promoting entrepreneurship. I work as part of the team of Employer Engagement Advisors of SEPnet (South East Physics Network) supporting industry placements for undergraduate physicists and helping to promote employability skills .More recently I joined DISCnet as a Business Engagement and Placement Manager. Identifying industry needs that can be met by physicists is huge part of my day job.Ensuring that women physicists have an equal and fair chance to meet those needs and answer the skills gap is equally important. I am delighted to be part of the 2021 Southampton CuWIP organising committee and am looking forward to sharing with attendees a fabulous programme of activities that we have developed.

Kevin MacDonald

I am a Professor of Nanophotonics at the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC). My research interests lie in the physics and technology of nano-mechanical and all-dielectric and phase-change metamaterials, electron-beam nanophotonics, and nanophotonic metrology. I am Manager of the ORC’s Focused Ion Beam Nanofabrication facility and Chair of the Centre’s Equality Diversity & Inclusion Committee. I currently represent the UK on the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Commission on Laser Physics and Photonics, am a member of the Editorial Board for the Nature Group journal Scientific Reports, and co-chair of the Metamaterials conference at SPIE Photonics Europe.

Diana Rojas-Ciofalo

I am a postdoc in the National Centre for Nuclear Research in Warsaw, and previously I was a Royal Society Newton International Fellow at the University of Southampton for two years. My area of research is High-Energy Physics, mainly building models that extend the Standard Model of Particle Physics and performing computer simulations to analyse signals that could be detected at experiments (from LHC@CERN to dark matter searches). I awarded my PhD in Mexico in the University of Puebla on August 2019. What I miss from my time in Mexico is playing Guitar Hero as a drummer, and sometimes playing real drums with a real rock band.

Sophie Smith

I am a 2nd year undergraduate student on the Physics with Astronomy programme. I got involved with planning this conference through the Women’s Physics Network, which I became a member to improve the opportunities for and number of women in the field of physics.