Profile

Hi, my name’s Leah and I’m a project engineer. I studied physics at the University of Sheffield and now I live in Oxfordshire. I love aerial arts (like you see at the circus) and watch A LOT of YouTube. I’m a vegetarian and my fave food/drink is bubble tea 😀

At UKAEA in Oxfordshire, we have two tokamaks (JET and MAST-U). These are fusion reactors – not to be confused with fission reactors which are already used in nuclear power stations. In a fusion reactor, hydrogen isotopes are heated to around 150 million degrees (10 times hotter than the centre of the Sun!). When hydrogen atoms get this hot, they begin to combine to form helium – this is called FUSION. When atoms fuse lots of fusion energy is released.

JET and MAST-U are two huge experiments that are helping us find the best way to build a fusion reactor. We are working towards building a fusion power station which would produce safe, sustainable, green energy!

My job is to learn all about the experimental equipment (also called diagnostics)  running on our machines so I can fix them, upgrade them, and even build my own! I spend my time managing projects, talking to scientists, and designing equipment.

I am currently RO (Responsible Officer) for about 6 different projects – that means it is my responsibility to fill out paperwork, talk to stakeholders (that’s anyone involved with the project), and to make sure the job gets done. I manage my projects from start to finish!

I have included a photo of a mini plasma ball that some previous employees built. The weird pink glow looks a lot like the inside of one of our tokamaks!

Usually I begin by checking for updates from everyone I’m working with, these could be from scientists, engineers, analysts, designers, or technicians. There are usually lots of updates as each of my projects is in a different design stage.

From there my day can go anywhere! Some days I help technicians do some work on JET, other days I have lots of design meetings with important people, and sometimes I take part in outreach. I like to lead tour groups for school visits and open evenings or go out with the Sun Dome (an inflatable planetarium we take into primary schools to talk about fusion).

I’ve added some selfies so you can see just how different my days can be! The first is me standing on top of JET (JET is 3 storeys high and you can see the orange 150 tonne crane hovering above my head!), the second is my first installation as RO (we installed some monitors on two 1100 tonne moving concrete radiation shields), and the third is my mask fitting to make sure my head isn’t too small (it isn’t)!