Hello dear listeners. The team of People doing Physics is taking a short break this summer and will be back in September with new guests and more physics chats. To help you wait, we’ve selected a couple of previous episodes we wanted to share again with you.

We start with our panel episode with three Undergraduate students, which comes out just as we are about to welcome once again hundreds of potential new students for the University of Cambridge Open Days.

This episode was recorded in June 2023, with Misha de Fockert and Armaan Shaikh, who were just finishing their 2nd year, and Ming-Shau Liu, who had just graduated from Cambridge after his 4th year.

We’ll leave you with them and their very open and unfiltered views on their time and experience of studying physics at Cambridge.

We hope you enjoy it, and if you do, don’t forget to rate it or leave a review on your favourite podcast app!

Episode 18: An open conversation with physics students, Misha de Fockert, Ming-Shau Liu and Armaan Shaikh

This is July and the streets of Cambridge burst with sun and excitement as students let a communal sigh of relief now that the academic year is over. This is July, and the time for future students to think about what subject they might be studying when choosing to go to university.

As we are welcoming hundreds of potential new students today and tomorrow for the University of Cambridge Open Days, we have invited three of our current undergraduate students to join us in the studio and talk to us, honestly and without filters, about their experience at Cambridge. Hearing directly from them may help young people thinking about studying physics in Cambridge or anywhere else, to take the leap.

Misha de Fockert and Armaan Shaikh have just finished their 2nd year – here in Cambridge we call it Part IB, and Ming-Shau Liu is graduating from Cambridge after his 4th year, which, not confusingly at all, is called Part 3!

All three of them, and this is just a coincidence, are students at Homerton College. With them today we talk about taking the time to reflect, imposter syndrome, building bridges and making friends for life.

• If you are thinking about applying to Cambridge, visit the Undergraduate Study website.
• Isaac Physics offer free support and activities in physics problem solving to teachers and students transitioning from GCSE (Y11), through to Sixth Form (Y12 & 13), to university. For direct support, you can also sign up to the Isaac Physics mentoring scheme.
• To learn more about the Cavendish Laboratory, or if you are interested in joining us or studying with us, go to the Cavendish website.

• If you like this episode don’t forget to rate it and leave a review on your favourite podcast app. It really helps others to find us.
• Any comment about the podcast or question you would like to ask our physicists, email us at podcast@phy.cam.ac.uk or join the conversation on X/Twitter using the hashtag #PeopleDoingPhysics.

Episode credits

Hosts: Vanessa Bismuth and Jacob Butler

Recording and Editing: Chris Brock

We are joined by Dr Lisa Jardine-Wright, OBE; Director of Isaac Physics, Director of Studies for Physics at Churchill College, and Vice-President for Education and Skills at the Institute of Physics.

An astrophysicist by training, Lisa studied Natural Sciences and for a Master’s Degree in Physics at Trinity College in Cambridge, before completing her PhD at the Institute of Astronomy just over the road from the Cavendish. While there, she became involved in the Institute’s outreach activities, contributing to the first Cambridge Festivals and the regular Public Open Evenings, before moving on to a postdoc that was split evenly between simulating the formation of spiral galaxies and outreach.

Since then, she has been a media fellow at the Financial Times, Astronomy Consultant for the Royal Observatory, Outreach Officer at the Cavendish, and co-founder of the internationally-used Isaac Physics project. Her work to support outreach and education has been widely recognised; Lisa has won numerous awards, culminating in an OBE for services to education in 2022.

In this episode, we talk to her about her route through science, the valuable perspective that comes from seeing your work through non-specialist eyes, and the importance of making her teachers work late…

• Isaac Physics is the free platform headed by Lisa, for students and teachers to master physics by solving problems.
• STEM SMART (Subject Mastery and Attainment Raising Tuition) is a widening participation initiative from the University of Cambridge in association with Isaac Physics, to provide free, complementary teaching and support to UK (non-fee paying) students.
• The research relating to A-level physics numbers that Lisa refers to is in this paper by Alan Smithers (Centre for Education and Employment Research University of Buckingham, 2014)
• For more inspiration on the different roles you can have in a Physics environment, listen to some of the previous episodes in the People Doing Physics' back catalogue, for example: Melanie Tribble, Emily Roe, Tom Sharp or Richard King
• To learn more about the Cavendish Laboratory, or if you are interested in joining us or studying with us, go to the Cavendish website.

• Help us get better by taking our quick survey. Your feedback will help us understand how we can improve in the future. Thank you!
• If you like this episode don’t...

This month on People Doing Physics, we have a voice very familiar to listeners; Simone Eizagirre Barker, PhD student in the Quantum Optical Materials and Systems group at the Cavendish.

Following a winding path into Optical Physics, Simone previously dipped her toes into Nanotechnology in the Cavendish’ NanoDTC, and Chemical Physics at the University of Edinburgh. Her interdisciplinary background builds on her fascination for figuring out how the world works, whether looking at quantum systems or how to structure the perfect argument. Outside of science, Simone has been involved in student magazines, debating clubs, improv theatre, and podcasts, most notably (in our opinion) as one of the founding members of this very podcast. She also produces a fortnightly segment for Basque public broadcast radio’s Faktoria Magazina.

In this episode, Simone talks about finding her way through a multi-disciplinary career in science, the importance of communication, and how to publish your first academic paper at the age of 16...

• Simone’s group and research are on the Quantum Cambridge website.
• To learn more about the Cavendish Laboratory, or if you are interested in joining us or studying with us, go to the Cavendish website.

• Help us get better by taking our quick survey. Your feedback will help us understand how we can improve in the future. Thank you!
• If you like this episode don’t forget to rate it and leave a review on your favourite podcast app. It really helps others to find us.
• Any comment about the podcast or question you would like to ask our physicists, email us at podcast@phy.cam.ac.uk or join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #PeopleDoingPhysics.

Hosts: Jacob Butler and Vanessa Bismuth

Recording and editing: Chris Brock