University of Exeter scientists present research to Parliament

Representatives from the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences will present their innovative work to politicians and a panel of judges at a special ceremony in Westminster, held in March.

The event is part of SET for Britain, an annual competition that promotes the work of Britain’s top early-stage research scientists and technologists in the fields of Biological and Biomedical Science, Chemistry, Engineering, Mathematics and Physics.

Entrants must produce a poster that explains their specific areas of research, with prizes awarded for those which best communicate high level science to a lay audience.

From Engineering, Dr Michael Hammond and his colleague, Dr Albert Chen, will present their work on the European-funded Collaborative research in Flood Resilience in Urban Areas (CORFU).  This pivotal research is centred on helping cities across both Europe and Asia become more resilient to flooding.

Speaking ahead of the competition, Dr Hammond said he was “honoured and delighted” to have been selected to present his work at Parliament.

He said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to showcase not just our research, but also to represent the College and the University as a whole and I am delighted to be able to present our work in such a distinguished and historic location as the Houses of Parliament.

“It is so important that, as scientists and engineers, we can communicate our work to the widest possible audience, and events such as SET for Britain give us the perfect opportunity to do so.

“We have invited Ben Bradshaw, Exeter’s MP, to come along to the event, and I look forward to having the opportunity to explain our research and the vital role it could play to him in person.”

Dr Hammond said he applied to the event after seeing an advert late last year. He and Dr Chen applied by sending in an abstract description of their potential poster, and also a letter of support from Professor Slobodan Djordjević.

Dr Hammond said: “There are three, two-hour poster exhibitions and judging sessions during the day, ending with a reception and prize-giving. It is expected that there will be about 60 posters on display in each session, so the very best research will be represented at the event.”

Meanwhile, Physics PhD student Charles Downing will present his research into the electronic properties of the so-called Dirac materials, named after Bristolian scientist Paul Dirac, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1933. Remarkably, these Dirac materials can mimic some exotic effects, usually only seen in giant particle accelerators like the one at CERN, in simple every-day materials, the most famous being graphene.

Charles, who is carrying out his research in collaboration with his PhD supervisor Professor Mikhail Portnoi, said he applied for the prestigious event because he enjoys presenting his work in a “popular and non-technical manner”.

He added: “I will explain how adding an Aharonov Bohm field to Dirac Hamiltonians requires one to perform a one-parameter family of self-adjoint extensions to completely define the eigenvalue spectrum, which can be carried out using the method of deficiency indices developed by von Neumann”.

SET for Britain was founded by the late Dr Eric Wharton DSc in 1997 to act as vehicle for early career scientists to engage with Parliamentarians and provide a platform to showcase their work in the form of a poster competition. SET stands for Science, Engineering and Technology.

The event is hosted by Andrew Miller MP and attended by a large number of MPs including prominent members of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.