After completing the Fusion Energy MSc at York University part-time, I am now starting on the CDT programme (also part-time).
Before my MSc, I was away from studying physics for quite some time, working as a physics teacher among other things. It is a privilege to return to my own studies and make a contribution within the fusion project!
My project supervisors are Dr Mark Bowden at the University of Liverpool and Dr Kevin Verhaugh at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE).
In future tokamak devices. handling the very intense energy flowing out of the plasma to the divertor is going to be an important issue. Operating the plasma in a mode called detachment is a key part of the solution but the conditions for detachment are not yet fully understood. This is an experimental project looking at plasma molecule interactions in the divertor of MAST-U (a spherical tokamak at CCFE) with the objective of determining their influence on detachment.