Profile
Lok Yiu (Kathy) Wu
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About Me:
I’m an experimental scientist (physical chemist) that works with lasers which is really fun! 😎 I live in Dudley with my partner and I love birds, especially ducks! 🦆
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My pronouns are:
she/her
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My Work:
I work in astrochemistry. This means that I am interested in the atoms and molecules that make up space, and how they interact or affect each other. We recreate the conditions in space in our laboratory on Earth, and study the reactions using lasers.
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Read more
When I tell people I study chemistry, they often think that I’m working with chemicals in the fume hood, mixing different liquids together, and heating things up! This is actually the opposite of what I do! As a physical chemist studying chemical reactions in space, I work a lot with vacuum chambers (the big stainless steel chambers in the photos). Things have to be in vacuum because we need to remove all the molecules in air (like the oxygen we breathe in and carbon dioxide we breathe out) so we can study only the things we are interested in, without worrying about all the extra stuff in the background. The molecules I work with are often very very very cold (-260°C to -200°C) because it is very cold in space! They are also gases. To understand how the molecules are behaving, I use lasers. These lasers allow me to get a sort of “fingerprint” based on the molecule, so I can understand what they are doing inside the big chamber. What this means is that I often can’t see what’s happening, because the lasers and gases are all invisible. We have to use a lot of advanced electronic equipment to help us monitor what’s going on.
When we have studied a reaction system, we can compare this to observations that other scientists have seen using telescopes in space (like Hubble, or the James Webb Space Telescope).
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My Typical Day:
I typically wake up at 6 am and go straight to my kettle to make a coffee. I usually do a bit of reading (either a book or the news) and leave home around 7 am. I drive to the Birmingham campus which takes me an hour because the morning traffic is horrible!
I get to work at 8 am, and I enjoy this quiet time to myself and usually focus on doing some thinking work. My day-to-day work varies quite a bit. Sometimes I’m on my own running my own experiments, sometimes I’m helping my colleagues with theirs, and sometimes I’m in the office doing a bit of admin, having meetings, or preparing presentations and papers (like a lab report). My favourite part is doing hands-on work in the lab, as I feel like I’m actively engaging with my work. Plus it’s fun to work with lasers! I usually break the day at 12 when I have lunch with friends, and sometimes go on coffee breaks.
I usually finish work around 6 pm and drive back home. Then I wind down for the night with dinner and put the TV on.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I’d love to use it to contribute towards a field trip to an awesome place, e.g. Jodrell Bank Observatory
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Education:
I did most of my secondary education in a local school in Hong Kong. I was always interested in science because science experiments were cool, but I wanted to be a medical doctor for a very long time to help people who were suffering. However, I soon realised that I didn’t have the personality to do medicine. My favourite subject had always been chemistry, and when I came to the UK for A-levels and started reading around the subject, I thought it was so interesting (even though I didn’t really understand it fully). On one of my first few days in the UK, my parents took me to Oxford for a day trip. I was so awestruck by how beautiful the city was, and I really wanted to study there. So I applied to do Chemistry at the University of Oxford. It was very difficult, but I really enjoyed my time there.
I actually fell out of love with chemistry because I was horrible at organic chemistry and hated being in the labs. However, in my fourth year, I had the opportunity to do a masters research project at a laser lab. I had an amazing supervisor and worked with amazing people, and really loved working with lasers — it was unlike anything I had ever done and I learnt a lot. During this time I was really undecided about my future career and actually decided to do a masters degree in Computer Science. While doing this, I was applying to software engineering jobs and also PhDs (in Chemistry and Computer Science). I got an offer to do a PhD with the group I had done my masters research project in. I heavily debated this because while I enjoyed my year there, I also thought it was incredibly difficult. However, I decided to go for it in the end and thought to myself if I could finish my PhD, then I could overcome anything else.
I started my PhD in Oxford, and had a lab move in my first year as my supervisor got a new position at the University of Liverpool. We packed up the whole lab in boxes and crates in 2 weeks and moved everything from Oxford to Liverpool.
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Qualifications:
iGCSEs: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, English, English Literature, Religious Studies, Mathematics, Business Studies, Economics,
A-Levels: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Japanese, Further Maths (AS only)
University: Chemistry MChem (4-year integrated masters degree), Computer Science MSc, PhD in Physical and Theoretical Chemistry
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Current Job:
Postdoctoral research fellow (Research scientist)
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Employer:
University of Birmingham
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
big laser operator
Were you ever in trouble at school?
I don't think so :)
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
I would love to work with animals
Who is your favourite singer or band?
It changes all the time, but at the moment it's Jamie Webster
What's your favourite food?
Battered chips from the Black Country!
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
I want a big farm with lots of ducks, sheep, goats, pigs, and geese!
Tell us a joke.
What did the scientist say when he found 2 isotopes of helium? HeHe
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