Hi, my name is Helen Smith and I work in the Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering at the Australian National University. My reasearch area is computational plasma physics. For those of you who aren't familiar with plasmas, they are hot, glowing gases, sometime described as the "4th state of matter". And if you're still confused, plasmas aren't as unfamiliar as you might think. Some everyday examples are:
I make computer models of special types of plasmas, which are used by industry to modify surface-layers of materials. These plasmas are used in the manufacture of all sorts of things, including
- the sun/stars
- aurora (northern and southern lights). See a photo of an aurora (600 k).
- lightning
- fluorescent lights
- arc welders
You might be interested in how I became a physicist. Well I took a fairly traditional path. I did a 3 year undergraduate degree in Science at Monash University, in Melbourne. Then I did an Honours (or 4th) Year, also at Monash, where I undertook a small research project in Physics. This is sort of like an apprenticeship, to see if you enjoy/are any good at scientific research. At the end of my Honours I decided I wanted to go on and do a PhD, so I applied to various universities for scholarships. In the end I chose to go to the Australian National University, since I had done some vacation work here and knew that the Plasma Research Lab was a good group to work in. My PhD took about 4 1/2 years to complete, although the final year I went to work at Sydney University (since my scholarship had finished and I still needed to eat!). I came back to Canberra in 1995 to work on large-scale computer programs which run on the super-computer.
- anti-reflective coatings on sunglasses, tv screens, windows etc
- making very durable surfaces on materials used in surgery (eg hip-replacement joints) and steel tools
- silicon chips used in computers
- optical waveguides, used for optical fibre communications
I have also had jobs teaching undergraduates, supervising laboratory pracs and doing a variety of computer coding.