Meet the finalists

Nick Dickens | Nicholas Harrigan | Philip Jess | Caroline Johnson
Marieke Navin | Jan Schnupp | Peter Zeidman | Reserves

Philip Jess, Belfast Heat Winner

Philip is a Ph.D. Student in the department of Physics and Astronomy, University of St. Andrews. Philip handed his Ph.D. in on a Friday then entered and won Belfast heat just two days later. To win his place in the final, Philip spoke about invisibility cloaks and used a chocolate egg to explain relativity.

How did you come up with your chosen subject matter at the FameLab heats?
           
The presentations were based around science you can do with things you can find in your own kitchen. You can do some really cool and jaw dropping stuff in your own kitchen, like make an invisibility cloak without having to go anywhere near a research lab and they are things that even excite top scientists.

Did your presentation go according to plan?
           
The first presentation went OK though I was a bit nervous. However I didn’t think I would make it through to the afternoon round and hadn’t really prepared a second presentation so I had to run into Belfast at lunchtime and pickup some stuff for my second presentation but it wasn’t too bad in the end.

Please tell us what you feel your key skills are as a science communicator and why the public might respond well to you

Tough question, I don’t really know but I hope my own personal enthusiasm and fascination with science drags people along with me and gets them excited about science too.

How did you get interested in science?

I guess I’ve always been interested in how stuff works, at the age of 10 I took apart a brand new remote control car to try and find how it was able to go without wires. Although I have to say at the time I wanted to be a fighter pilot. When I found out I couldn’t be a pilot I got really interested in science again and after doing some research projects I was hooked and signed up for a PhD which I’m doing now.

What do you do currently?

Currently I am finishing my PhD in Biophysics at the University of St Andrews. My interests are in the use of lasers to study and diagnose the development of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. At the minute I’m mostly focussing on the development of a screening test for lung cancer, were in the proof of concept phase so fingers crossed it will work OK.

Why does science excite and inspire you?

As I have mentioned I just enjoy finding out how things work and messing around with technology. There are also those rare magic moments when you discover or do something totally new and it’s amazing to sit back and think that you are the first person on the planet to ever see it.
           
To date, what has been your most exciting scientific moment (other than being a FameLab finalist of course!)

It’s hard to say, I think probably ranking up there was the result of research I did for my Masters degree, I worked on optical communications components for possible use on the new Airbus A380. Whenever you see pictures of the aircraft it’s nice to think I played a small part in it, although it really was a very very very very small part.

Who are your favourite science communicators and why?

I have to say I really like the style of Richard Hammond and the Brainiac team. They do explain some cool science whilst keeping it uncomplicated, fresh and interesting. I also liked Stephen Hawkings’ books - he manages to get some really tough concepts over without the use of crazy equations or serious jargon.

What are your ambitions for the future? Would winning FameLab have any impact on your plans?

I don’t have any big plans for the future. I really enjoy doing science, it’s not really a job more of an awesome hobby I get paid to do, so I’ll keep doing it whilst I still enjoy it and if any other opportunities, such as famelab, come along then I’ll just have to see where they go.