Introducing the 2022 Grads! (Part 3)

This is the third instalment of grad introductions for the 2022 Cohort. One last bunch in a couple weeks' time to wrap up our largest graduate intake so far!

And now, onto the Graduate Introductions Part 3:

Alisha Khan

Name: Alisha Khan

University & Course: Coventry University, BEng Electronic Engineering (with a placement year)
Department you're working in: RACE
Where are you based? Oxford
What are you looking forward to on the Grad Scheme? Meeting new people, working collaboratively with others and developing a wide range of skills within Electronics and Electrical engineering.
What do you like to do in your spare time? Crochet, Knitting, Painting, Drawing, Hiking and Gaming.
Dream holiday, past or future, and why? Nara, Japan because of the adorable free roaming deer that visitors can feed, the beautiful scenery and the artwork.
Who inspires you? One of my friends I met during my undergraduate studies, they’re an incredibly hardworking and enthusiastic person who always goes out of their way to help others. Also Sami (he made me add this)
If you could have one wish granted, what would it be? To remove the class divide.
Favourite thing/food/person you’d bring with you to a desert island? An unlimited supply of Black Forest Gateau 😋

Oliver Crosby

Name: Oliver Crosby
University & Course: University of Manchester: Mechanical Engineering MEng
Department you're working in: STEP
Where are you based? Oxford
What are you looking forward to on the Grad Scheme: Working on the most important and exciting engineering challenge in the world.
What do you like to do in your spare time? Rock climbing, reading, going to gigs, the pub.
Dream holiday, past or future, and why? Go to Mars
Who inspires you? My Dad.
If you could have one wish granted, what would it be? Time travel
Favourite thing/food/person you’d bring with you to a desert island? My copy of Ulysses/ Beans on toast/ My Brother.

Elliot

Name: Elliott Lambert Parsons
University & Course: University of Sheffield – Meng Mechanical Engineering
Department you're working in: RACE
Where are you based? Oxford - Cowley
What are you looking forward to on the Grad Scheme? Grad Olympics
What do you like to do in your spare time? Running, Gym, Pub
Dream holiday, past or future, and why? South America – Have never been and it looks like a beautiful part of the world
Who inspires you? David Attenborough – Legend of the environmental community
If you could have one wish granted, what would it be? Meeting David Attenborough
Favourite thing/food/person you’d bring with you to a desert island? David Attenborough

Kiyana Patel

Name: Kiyana Patel

University & Course: University of Southampton, MEng Aero and Astro with Spacecraft Engineering
Department you're working in: Central Engineering
Where are you based? Culham
What are you looking forward to on the Grad Scheme? Meeting new people and taking part in lots of different projects
What do you like to do in your spare time? Orchestra, hiking and climbing
Dream holiday, past or future, and why? Tanzania, went this summer and it is a beautiful country
Who inspires you? My friends and family
If you could have one wish granted, what would it be? To have an unlimited supply of chai
Favourite thing/food/person you’d bring with you to a desert island? My sister and best friend, we survived wild camping together

Izzy

Name: Isobel Anne Butler (Izzy)
Uni and Course: Newcastle University, MEng Chemical Engineering
Department: H3AT, TIU
Based: B24 (at work), Headington (at home)
Grad Scheme: outreach section, I enjoy meeting young people and presenting new ideas etc
Spare Time: I’m a bit of a chaotic mix of yoga and pub quizzes, I tend to use the weekends to catch up w old friends and family (if you stay with them it's like a budget holiday, lol)
Dream holiday: It’s gotta be Iceland, right? Everyone is waiting for the day they are rich enough to stay in an igloo with loads of hot chocolate and watch the northern lights
Inspiration: Sounds cringe, but my sister gives everyone AMAZING Christmas gifts and she sticks to a budget too. I aim to one day up my present skills to match hers.
One wish granted: If you don’t say world peace are you a terrible person? My wish would have to be free tea and coffee at work, it doesn’t taste as good if you have to pay for it ☹
Dessert Island item: My duvet. I don’t care how warm it is, if I’m not sleeping under a huge pile of blankets and pillows it’s not a good night’s sleep (seems like an island essential)

Tom Aveyard

Name: Thomas Aveyard

University & Course: University of Sheffield, MEng Engineering (Aerospace)
Department you're working in: Central Engineering

Where are you based? Culham, living in Oxford
What are you looking forward to on the Grad Scheme? Hopefully making some kind of meaningful contribution to a future working fusion reactor
What do you like to do in your spare time? Mainly sport - gym, cycling, running etc. Also quite like cooking and being more into coffee than is probably sensible
Dream holiday, past or future, and why? Bikepacking trip through Vietnam
Who inspires you? Chris Hadfield
If you could have one wish granted, what would it be? To go to space

Favourite thing/food/person you’d bring with you to a desert island? Coffee. It’s not an addiction, I swear

Clark Rutter

Name: Clark Rutter

University & Course: University of Bath – MEng Electronic Electrical Engineering
Department you're working in: RACE Electrical
Where are you based? Culham
What are you looking forward to on the Grad Scheme? Developing my electrical design skills further, and gaining experience in other departments using my graduate development time
What do you like to do in your spare time? I enjoy flying my own FPV quadcopters, Boxing, and music
Dream holiday, past or future, and why? Iceland – Never been but looks amazing!
Who inspires you? Sergio Perez
If you could have one wish granted, what would it be? Unlimited wishes
Favourite thing/food/person you’d bring with you to a desert island? Pavlova

Ben Mercer

Name: Ben Mercer
University & Course: Newcastle University, MEng Chemical Engineering
Department you're working in: Central Engineering Department
Where are you based? Based at the Culham site, living in Oxford
What are you looking forward to on the Grad Scheme? Helping contribute towards the STEP concept design by 2024
What do you like to do in your spare time? Running, playing guitar & visiting friends around the UK
Dream holiday, past or future, and why? I enjoy skiing over a sun & beach holiday because I like to be active!
Who inspires you? Thiago Alcantara, inspirational man
If you could have one wish granted, what would it be? To skip the Culham traffic in a morning
Favourite thing/food/person you’d bring with you to a desert island? Marcus Wareing, for his cooking talents

Rohan Inston

Name: Rohan Inston
Uni/Course: Bristol, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering
Department: MRF
Based: Culham (M1)
Looking forward to: Learning all the WONs off by heart
Spare time: Recuperating, playing music, working with old rusty hand tools etc
Dream holiday: Travelling around the med sounds nice
Who inspires me: Ray Mears (not Bear Grylls)
Wish: A form of carbon capture that also feeds and offers education to everyone and that is free, profitable, dissolves all conflict, and boosts biodiversity … :D
Thing to take to a desert island: A wilson branded volleyball (moral support) and that guy from primitive technology (technical support)

Fin Christie

Name: Finlay Christie
University & Course: Strathclyde, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering
Department you're working in: STEP
Where are you based? Oxford, Cowley
What are you looking forward to on the Grad Scheme? Meeting lots of interesting people and helping the team get some energy back from fusion - sick and tired of it only ever taking tbh...
What do you like to do in your spare time? I like hanging out with my friends, going to gigs, climbing and hillwalking. I also play a fair bit of playstation, I know I will be shunned for this, but I enjoy FIFA and football manager quite a lot :0
Dream holiday, past or future, and why? I want to go to Chille/ Peru to see the Ande's and the Atacama Desert, but will have to save up for 10-15 years at this rate.
Who inspires you? Stevie Clarke
If you could have one wish granted, what would it be? Scotland at a world cup
Favourite thing/food/person you’d bring with you to a desert island? My tent

KIT Summer School 2022

In September, the grads visited Germany to attend the 14th International School on Fusion Technologies at KIT in the beautiful Karlsruhe. This was the first time the school had run since before the pandemic, so grad scheme alumni from the 2019 cohort joined the 2020 and 2021 cohorts as we journeyed together for the long-anticipated summer school.

In total there were 31 of us, making up about half of the conference attendees! Our grads represented a variety of departments: CED (Central Engineering), RACE (our Robotics facility), H3AT (our Tritium lab), H&CD (Heating & Current Drive), OCE (Office of the Chief Engineer), Technology, and myself in Advanced Computing.

We met attendees from all over the world, representing both academic and industrial backgrounds, all congregated together to learn more about the technology and engineering that is making fusion energy a reality. After two years largely working in our bedrooms during lockdown, or otherwise focussed on our own projects, it was a refreshing reminder of the context which each of our own day-to-day work fits into, and the global nature of our quest.

KIT Summer School Group Photo 2022 ~ Credit: Mihaela Ionescu-Bujor

The school covered twelve key fusion technology topics over five days:

• Monday opened with an introduction to fusion and plasma physics, by guest lecturers from EUROfusion, the CEA, and our own UKAEA, followed by a lecture on neutronics. 
  
  These topics comprise the core physics of fusion energy: the coupling of magnetohydrodynamic and nuclear considerations that make the magnetically confined deuterium-tritium reaction a viable route to the decarbonised future of energy generation.
  
  
• Tuesday ramped things up by delving into the various plasma heating technologies, plasma diagnostics, and the fusion power plant fuel cycle with guest lectures from UKAEA and the CEA. Tuesday also featured a tour of the gyrotron test stand and was rounded off by tours of KIT’s fusion materials and tritium laboratories.
  
  Developing technologies to efficiently heat and fuel a fusion power plant are very much the sort of practical engineering challenges that define the modern stage of fusion R&D, as distinct from the theoretical physics groundwork solved in the preceding decades.
  
  
• Wednesday covered two major fusion technologies: breeder blankets (required for providing tritium to the fuel cycle), and superconductive magnets (required for plasma confinement).
  
  Breeder blankets are a technology unique to fusion, and a personal favourite of mine, so it was very interesting to learn about the designs being tested in ITER with a guest lecture from F4E (the ITER organisation's European contribution). Tritium is the rarest and most expensive fusion fuel, so a commercial fusion power plant will need to breed tritium in-situ to sustain its fuel cycle and provide a tritium inventory. An elegant solution to this challenge lies in lithium, which emits tritium upon capture of a high energy neutron: exactly the kind of neutron emitted by the main fusion reaction. Thus, a breeder blanket sits snuggly around the vacuum vessel performing two functions: absorbing high energy neutrons and turning their energy into electricity while returning the produced tritium to the power plant fuel cycle.
  
  Superconductive magnets are another fascinating technology used in only a handful of modern applications (including MRI scanners and maglev trains). They are crucial to the design of most fusion power plants, because confining a fusion plasma in a tokamak requires a strong magnetic field. The field strength of an electromagnet grows in line with the current applied, which in a conductor leads to resistive heating as electrons collide with atomic nuclei in the material. Superconductors, however, quite literally have zero resistance, allowing for strong magnetic fields to be produced without melting the magnet in the process.
  
  
• Thursday discussed the materials for fusion devices, including the tungsten divertors. Fusion materials require special properties, capable of withstanding exposure to high heat flux and neutron irradiation for extended periods of time. Neutrons become embedded in these materials, causing microscopic impurities in the lattice which act to embrittle them. At the same time, the high temperatures involved act to soften the materials. Understanding the complex interplay between these phenomena is crucial to engineering a fusion power plant from materials capable of operation throughout its lifetime.
  
  We also discussed the safety, socioeconomics, and waste considerations of fusion with guest lectures from F4E and ENEA. I was glad to see the inclusion of this topic, as the positive socioeconomic impact of fusion is what drew so many of us into the field. The potential to decarbonise the energy supply, while avoiding the waste and safety issues of fossil fuels and nuclear fission is attractive, but it doesn’t come for free; the only way to realise that goal is to integrate safety and waste considerations directly into the design processes in a transparent way, and I’m proud to see that that is exactly how it’s being done.
  
  
• Friday closed with remote handling and maintenance, something my robotics colleagues in RACE are very experienced with, all topped off with guest lectures from the Max Planck Institute on the ASDEX Upgrade and Wendelstein 7-X stellerator facilities. It was great to hear how much progress had been achieved in stellarator technology, especially since it's not something that gets researched much at UKAEA. It was another reminder of how fusion is a collaborative worldwide effort with many organisations and countries involved in bringing the future closer, and a great topic for the final day of KIT.

Of course, we couldn’t visit Karlsruhe without sampling some of their world-famous beer. Luckily, we were honoured to be provided an excellent evening meal at the Badisch Brauhaus (“Badisch Brewery”) which was enjoyed by all.

Evening Meal at the Badisch Brauhaus ~ Credit: Luke Humphrey

On behalf of the graduate scheme, I’d like to thank the organisers for getting this event running again after the pandemic. It was a fantastic opportunity to learn from experts, communicate with others working in fusion, and to enjoy a week in Germany.

The famous Schlossgarten of Karlsruhe ~ Credit: James Hodson

Finally, if anybody reading this would like the attend, the next Summer School will take place at KIT in Karlsruhe, Germany from September 11 to 15, 2023. I invite you to keep an eye on this page for details: https://summerschool.fusion.kit.edu/index.php.

You can also check out our own Plasma Physics Summer School here at UKAEA in Oxfordshire, UK at: https://culhamsummerschool.org.uk/.

Article by: Luke Humphrey