Schools are taking part from all over
It’s time to announce the scientists and schools taking part in next I’m a Scientist event, running from March 11th-22nd 2013.
We were really oversubscribed with both scientists and schools this time round. 6 scientists applied for every place. There were a lot of great scientists doing fascinating research we had to turn down. In November 2012 one scientist said “I had an amazing experience and that was down to the enthusiasm shown by [the students] for Science, both weird and wonderful!”. I’m sure this event will be the same.
Schools wanted 36% more classes than we have space for. 140 teachers will be taking part with schools from Penmaenmawr to Jersey, and Montrose to the Lizard Peninsula. A teacher in November 2012 explains why she wants to take part again – “it was a really enjoyable way to ‘open’ pupils eyes to what is possible.”
Brain Zone
Scientists
| Susanna Martin | University of Bath | I am a psychologist who investigates the use of technology and its impact within education. |
| Michael Craig | University of Edinburgh | My work looks at helping people who have problems with their memory (Alzheimer’s disease) to remember more new information. |
| Jenn Todd Jones | University of Bristol | I study the brain and psychology to try and understand how some people, bilinguals, can read or listen or speak in more than one language all at once – and ask the very important question, is it good or bad to be bilingual? |
| James Stovold | University of York | Looking at how the brain talks to itself, so that we can then use these ideas to control robots and see how robots can think for themselves and think as a team. |
| Ben Brilot | Newcastle University | I’m trying to find out why people have emotions, like anxiety, and whether other animals experience these emotions too. |
Schools
Perth Academy, Perth
St Saviour’s and St Olave’s, London
The Angmering School, Angmering
West Thames College, Isleworth
Sirius Academy, Hull
Ralph Thoresby School, Leeds
Dixons City Academy, Bradford
The Royal School Dungannon, Dungannon
Great Marlow School, Marlow
Helston Community College, Helston
Bramdean School, Exeter
Garforth Academy, Leeds
The Woodroffe School, Lyme Regis
Digital Zone
Funded by the RCUK Digital Economy Theme
Scientists
| Phillip Wilkinson | Bournemouth University | I am exploring the way video games and digital media effects our mind and emotions with aim to create fun games that make us happier, confident and improve our social skills. |
| Marina De Vos | University of Bath | I work as a computer scientist to let programs make decisions on their own, so they can compose music, assist us in our daily lives or preserve buildings after earthquakes. |
| Claudia Krehl | The University of Nottingham | I work in Human Computer Interaction, that means I get to play with the latest gadgets with the aim to make it easier for people to interact with their phones especially when they are multitasking on the move. |
| Angela Marqui | University of Aberdeen | I’m working with companies that sell their stuff online to learn how to keep the person waiting for their stuff better informed about ‘where is my stuff’ and ‘when should I stay at home waiting for a delivery’ using mobile apps and text messages |
| Alessandro Guazzi | Oxford University | I use cameras to find out how healthy people are, so that they won’t have to go to hospital anymore. |
Schools
St Edward’s Prep School, Reading
Caroline Chisholm School, Wooton
Tarbert Academy, Tarbert
Pate’s Grammar School, Cheltenham
Grove School, Market Drayton
Gladesmore Community School, London
Abbotsmede Primary School, Peterborough
Downend School, Bristol
Rudolf Steiner School, Kings Langley
Sussex Downs College, Eastbourne
Longton Primary School, Preston
Hameldon Community College, Burnley
St Mary Redcliffe and Temple, Bristol
Drug Development Zone
Scientists
| Tom Branson | University of Leeds | I’m modifying proteins to build nanoscale architecture and nanoobjects for drug delivery |
| Yalda Javadi | University of Cambridge | Using new designer proteins to build nanomaterials that can be used in medicine. |
| Jon Marles-Wright | Edinburgh University | I look at how we can use the proteins inside bacteria to do useful things for us, such as making medicines, or valuable chemicals. |
| Jack Heal | University of Warwick | I make drugs that kill viruses like HIV, so that they don’t kill you. |
| Claire Innes | Ogilvy Healthworld | I help make the news around new medicines – and ensure everyone from poorly patients to front-line physicians knows about them |
Schools
Lampton School, Hounslow
City Of London Boys School, London
Blackfen School for Girls, Blackfen
The John Lyon School, Harrow on the Hill
Mildred Gill, Londonderry
Jersey College For Girls, St Saviour
Fitzharrys School, Abingdon
Buxton School, Leytonston
Rutlish School, London
William Brookes School, Much Wenlock
Beechfield Secure Unit, Copthorne
Brislington Enterprise College, Bristol
Food Science Zone
Funded by the BBSRC & University of Nottingham
Scientists
| Rachel Edwards-Stuart | Westminster Kingsway College | Like Willy Wonka, I use science to try and create new food products and interesting flavours – or as someone once described me “Rachel takes the principals of Rock and Roll and applies them to flavour science” |
| Nik Watson | University of Leeds | I am a food scientist who uses sound waves to study what food (like chocolate) is made of, and why the sound food makes when we eat it is important. |
| Julie Bland | University of Reading | I am a cheese scientist, which means I make cheese, study it in the lab and eat cheese all day long to find how to make the best cheese. |
| Grant Campbell | University of Manchester | I study bubbles in food (particularly bread), as these are cheap, versatile and non-fattening(!) ingredients that give novelty and luxury to many of the foods we eat. |
| Duncan Gaskin | Institute of Food Research | Bug busting boffin fighting foodborne baddies. |
Schools
Tarporley High School, Tarporley
Lathallan School, Montrose
King Edwards School, Birmingham
St. Joseph’s College, Dumfries
Acle Adademy, Acle
The Ridgeway School, Swindon
Queen Elizabeth School, Carnforth
Q3 Academy, Birmingham
Hurstmere School, Sidcup
Nursteed Community Primary School, Devizes
Willowfield Humanities College, Walthamstow
Scraptoft Valley Primary School, Leicester
Pensby High Schools Federation, Wirral
Health Zone
Scientists
| Stefan Piatek | Imperial College London | Asthma is a really common disease, I’m figuring out how a special protein found in the lungs switches off genes, so we treat asthma better in the future |
| Phil Rice | St George’s Hospital | I have discovered how chickenpox virus has changed because of how the Moon was made and that this knowledge could lead to killing off the virus forever. |
| Melissa Brereton | University of Oxford | I zap frog eggs with electricity to try and find out why the sugar in some children’s blood stays too high after they eat a chocolate bar. |
| Jill Magee | NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde | I get to work with equipment that can show images of organs inside your body including your heart, lungs and even your brain! |
| Jennifer Paxton | University of Birmingham | I’m a tissue engineer, which means that I’m trying to find ways to grow bits of the body in the lab so we can replace diseased or damaged organs in people and make them well again! |
Schools
Bishop Douglas, East Finchley
Francis Combe Academy, Watford
The Jewish Community Secondary School, New Barnet
Mount House School, Tavistock
Colchester County High School For Girls, Colchester
Lucton School, Leominster
Thistley Hough High School, Stoke On Trent
Deyes High School, Liverpool
Overton Grange School, Sutton
Irvine Royal Academy, Irvine
Bure Park Primary School, Bicester
Trinity CE High School, Hulme
Medical Physics Zone
Funded by the Institute of Physics in Medicine, with help from the Institute of Physics
Scientists
| Leila Nichol | St Luke’s Cancer Centre, Royal Surrey County Hospital | I zap evil cancer cells with radiation! |
| Jim O Doherty | St Thomas’ Hospital | Our team injects patients with dangerous radioactive liquids to study and treat their cancer |
| Frank Soboczenski | University of York | My work is focused on reducing number-entry errors in medical devices. |
| Dhvanil Karia | Clatterbridge Cancer Centre / University of Liverpool | I work with medical imaging physics (X-ray and stuff) and in particular; predicting outcomes of cancer treatments that use radiotherapy |
| Charlotte Kemp | James Cook University Hospital | My job is to help doctors by making measurements on patients and includes putting probes into people’s brains, sending electric shocks up their spines and helping tiny babies to start breathing when they are born. |
Schools
Ashton Community Science College, Preston
Melksham Oak Community School, Melksham
South Molton Community College, South Molton
Kirkby Stephen Grammar School, Kirkby Stephen
Downend School, Bristol
Broadoak Maths And Computing College, Weston-Super-Mare
Liberton High School, Edinburgh
Space Zone
Funded by the Institute of Physics
Scientists
| Usman Kayani | Kings College London | I study the most powerful beasts that exist in the universe, which absolutely nothing not even light can escape from – black holes. I investigate what the black hole does and looks like near the horizon, the outer limit AKA the point of no return. |
| Shawn Domagal-Goldman | NASA | I look for ways to look for aliens. |
| Martin Archer | Imperial College London | Earth has a magnetic shield against the solar wind (hot gas that streams off the Sun) but this shield isn’t perfect, so I look at how things can get through and what the impact on us is. |
| Grant Kennedy | Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge | I’m an astrophysicist and I work on planets – I spend my days figuring out how they were built, and what happens when they smack into each other at high speed! |
| Amy Tyndall | University of Manchester, but currently at ESO, Chile | Understanding what happens when stars die, and how they create a beautiful ‘space cloud’ (also called a ‘planetary nebula’) in the process |
Schools
Lancaster Girls’ Grammar School, Lancaster
Witton Park High School, Blackburn
The Urswick School, Hackney
Kingsmead, Wiveliscombe
Settlebeck School, Sedbergh
Woodkirk Academy, Wakefield
Broadoak Mathematics and Computing College, Weston-Super-Mare
Vyne Community School, Basingstoke
Nottingham University Samworth Academy, Bilborough
Queens’ School, Bushey
Wayland Academy, Thetford
Technetium Zone
Scientists
| Nicola Fletcher | University of Birmingham | Uncovering the clever ways viruses get into your brain |
| Kathryn McMahon | University of Leeds | I work on how we can starve hungry cancers by cutting off their blood supply. |
| Jonathan Stone | University of East Anglia/British Geological Survey | I am a volcanologist who trains up school children and adults to monitor volcanoes – turning them into citizen scientists so that they can make their environment safer. |
| Debbie Crockard | Marine Conservation Society | I’m a Fisheries Policy Officer, which means I work to protect our oceans from overfishing and to make sure that there are plenty of fish and other animals in the sea so that we can keep catching and eating fish without doing to much damage to the environment |
| Glyn Barrett | Rothamsted Research | I’m a Biologist, and I look at deadly bacteria that live on the food we eat, so we can kill them before they arrive on your dinner plate! |
Schools
The Jewish Community Secondary School, New Barnet
Wellesley House School, Kent
Riverside College Halton, Widnes
Kirkland High School and Community College, Leven
Gateacre School, Liverpool
The Oldham Hulme Grammar School, Oldham
Backwell School, Bristol
Leatherhead Trinity, Leatherhead
Churston Ferrers Grammar School, Brixham
Carleton Endowed C.E. Primary School, Bradford
Weston, Sauk (USA)
Farnham Primary School, Bradford
Skipton Girls’ High School, Skipton
The Sutton Academy, St Helens
Ruthenium Zone
Scientists
| Sophie Holles | University of Bristol | Underwater sound: what does it do to fish?? |
| Nathan Green | The Health Protection Agency | Who wants to stay in hospital longer than they need to? I help get people back home as soon as possible by peering in to the hidden lives of hospital germs. |
| Jason King | CR-UK Beatson Institute | Every wondered if cells get worn out? I am trying to work out how they eat their broken bits to stay healthy, and prevent disease. |
| Hayley Evers-King | University of Cape Town | I study the oceans from space using satellites! |
| Edward Bovill | University of Sheffield | Solar panels are big, expensive and ugly – I make new ones out of special, brightly colored plastics that could be sprayed onto your roof like paint! |
Schools
Cardinal Wiseman Catholic School, London
Somervale School, Midsomer Norton
Concord College, Shrewsbury
Cumnor House Boys School, South Croydon
Campion School, Leamington Spa
The Ockendon Academy, Thurrock
Hurstmere, Sidcup
Nisai Virtual Academy, Stockton-on-Tees
St Peter’s Catholic Primary School, Leatherhead
Ysgol Dinas Bran, Llangollen
St John the Baptist Primary School, Fauldhouse
Tong Schol, Bradford
Roundhay High School, Leeds
Gretton Primary, Corby
Rhodium Zone
Scientists
| Thanasis Georgiou | University of Manchester | By combining the thinnest materials in the world, just one-atom thick, I prepare devices which are to be used for future flexible and transparent electronics. |
| Norman Lazarus | Kings College London | What did exercise ever do for me? |
| Nicola Wardrop | University of Southampton | I study diseases which spread from animals to humans in developing countries. I use a combination of maps and statistics to try and understand how environmental factors (for example vegetation, rivers or forests) and living conditions can influence disease |
| Sandra Richards | Oxford University NHS Trust | I chop up body parts. I also look at cervical cells under the microscope to see if a woman’s cervix is healthy or not. I also spin lots of wee. |
| Laura Soul | University of Oxford | I use fossils of ancient animals, from dinosaurs and tigers to seashells and starfish, to understand how extinction and evolution happen. |
Schools
Stanchester Academy, Yeovil
Wellington College, Crowthorne
Loreto St Michaels, Navan
Matthew Moss High School,Rochdale
The Priory School, Shrewsbury
Woodlands School, Birmingham
Roundwood Park School, Harpenden
Beacon Hill Community School, Aspatria
St Andrews CE Primary, Sherborne
Prior Park College, Bath
St Joseph’s RC High School, Newport
King Edward’s School, Bath
Trentham High School, Stoke-on-Trent
Sandal Endowed Junior School, Wakefield
Palladium Zone
Scientists
| Simon Park | University of Surrey | Food Bugs: the good, the bad, and the very bad |
| Niall Crawford | University of Glasgow | Finding out how tree frogs feet can stick, and how we can copy it |
| Janet Daly | University of Nottingham | I am particularly interested in how viruses spread between individuals and from one species to another; I’m sure you already know influenza viruses can infect people and birds, but did you know that horses get ‘flu too? |
| James Holloway | University College London | I’m working on the most powerful particle-guns in the world, which we use blow apart the tiniest things in the universe! |
| Emma Ashley | NHS | My job involves looking at your blood, wee and poo(!) samples that are taken by your doctor to check that your body is ticking over nicely. |
Schools
Beckfoot School, Bradford
Great Marlow School, Slough
Shire Oak Academy, Walsall
Holy Trinity School, Crawley
Moor End Academy, Huddersfield
MidKent College, Gillingham
Pencae, Penmaenmawr
Budmouth College, Weymouth
Westfield Primary School, Woking
The Ravensbourne School, Bromley
St Patrick’s PS, Derrygonnelly
Culcheth High School, Warrington
Birchwood High School, Bishops Strotford
The Brakenhale School, Bracknell