Project, poster conference and scientific visit

Despite mine requisites to get into the project did sound trivial to me, I couldn’t be more wrong. I expected it will take couple week to build all I need to do the most interesting part of research. However, the main issue isn’t working with data and collecting data but in understanding it. For example, measuring plasma density is quite complicated and the method can differ to each experiment. This makes it very difficult to compare results without deeply understanding how measurements work. The biggest surprise however was that depending on the design of experiment and the way parameters are measures the data are stored at totally different locations that seem to have no logic. Finding data, I need to do my research became basically a very complicated puzzle. However, having the first term to get familiar with basically every aspect of fusion experiments and measurements I got valuable hints where data I need might be located. Finally, I had access to data so I was thrilled to do research. However, when I inspected the quality of data I was shocked. There was nothing I could achieve without significantly cleaning and filtering the data.

Back to the main point, it’s second term the crucial time for project because all these annoying barriers to actually do the research at full speed are over. Thanks to that my project is progressing at fast face and I need to generate final results soon. Similarly, to me others in my year faced comparable difficulties depending on the nature of their project. It is not a coincidence that just at this time a student poster mini conference was organised. This event was compulsory for all year 4 Physics students and it was great occasion to present results. It is absolutely impressive to see how much progress my peers have made in just couple weeks in this term, once they overcame the difficulties like I did.

The poster mini conference is just the beginning. I am going to visit Culham Centre for Fusion Energy where the experiments I analyse took place. My research group is closely cooperating with the research team there. I have already came to the centre for research visit but this time it’s going to be different. I am going to present most of my results that are on the edge of human understanding of fusion. My work has already delivered lot of impact since based on my finding the group has been granted more experimental time for further investigations at tokamak MAST-U. I am totally excited to have fruitful discussion about my results with leading fusion experts in fusion.