Sheffield student's CERN experience

Sheffield Physics and Philosophy student Katherine Chapman spent the summer of 2012 working at the CERN particle physics facility in Geneva. Here is an account of her experience.

"When I started my undergraduate in Physics and Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, I would not have believed that I would be working at CERN at the time of one of the most significant announcements for science in the century; the discovery of the Higgs-like-Boson. However, this is exactly where I have found myself this summer after completing two of my three years, I am spending 4 months over the summer working as Science Communication student in the EU projects group at CERN. I have had the opportunity to organise an event at CERN; the first ever CERN Tweetup, write published articles, make a presentation in the CERN auditorium and met many interesting and important people.

My supervisor, also a University of Sheffield Physics and Philosophy graduate, has helped me to visit a huge number of the experiments at CERN including three of the underground detectors, several accelerators and control rooms and the anti-hydrogen decelerator. I have been able to meet and talk to the people that run these different pieces of equipment and get an insight into how it all works. I have met 6 astronauts that took the AMS detector into space and shaken the hand of the Nobel prise winning physicist Professor Ting. However, what has been the most exciting part about being at CERN is how inspiring it is to become a physicist. It is amazing the power physics has to unify a huge range of nationalities and produce some amazing results. Working in such a diverse and challenging environment is a real thrill and makes you feel that you could achieve anything here.

I first became interested in science communication when one of our first year lab sessions was taken by a past Sheffield physics graduate (Dr Marieke Navin) who had gone on to work at a science museum after completing her PhD. She challenged us to explain complicated physics demonstrations in simple language, and I knew this was perfect for me. After getting in touch with her through the physics department, she pointed me towards some ways that I could start volunteering to do science demonstrations, and that is when I found Science Brainwaves. Science Brainwaves is a student run branch of the British Science Association in Sheffield where it holds a huge number of events and educational days with the University of Sheffield. I became a committee member and organised events and activities that introduced all different people to concepts in science. The experience I gained doing this, and in my degree working in groups on projects, gave me the opportunity to work at CERN, for which I am thoroughly grateful."

If you would like to get in touch with me to find out more, feel free to contact me by email:
Katherine Chapman – KChapman1@shef.ac.uk or k.chapman@sciencebrainwaves.com