New Job!

I got a job!

I know that normally I talk about beauty and whatnot on Tuesdays but I have been dying to tell everyone this news! I’ve actually known for a while but I was waiting for paperwork to get sorted out and that kind of thing so that it was definitely 100% confirmed.

Anyway – that’s all done now and today is my first day! Wish me luck.

I’ll be working on graviometers. They detect local changes in gravity. There’s probably a basic one in your smartphone, which is how your screen rotation function works. The smartphone ones aren’t all that accurate, but they are nice and small and portable. You can get much more accurate ones, but they’re about the size of a sofa, so much less portable. I’ll be working on accurate, portable devices.

The research group is a sub-group of the one I’m already in at the Institute for Gravitational Research in Glasgow. It’s a small group at the moment but it’s growing quickly and I’m really looking forward to getting involved with the project. Even better: Since I’m still writing my thesis I’ve been allowed to start part time. For the next two months, I’ll work at 50% and spend the other 50% of my time trying to get my thesis sorted.

It’s going to be a challenging two months but I’m excited. This is going to be fun.

Incidentally, my colleague Richard is also big on public engagement and science outreach (yay!) Here’s his FameLab talk about the research I’ll now be working on: