Joseph Weller

PhD thesis: TBC

I will be working in a large group in the Nanophotonics department producing nanoparticles, assembling them into structures called nano-materials, and then studying the properties of these new structures and attempting to find practical uses for the new technology, as well as ways to optimise the process of their production. In particular I am currently most interested in the effects which these structures have on certain wavelengths of light for the purpose of medical sensing, although there is a lot of interconnected work within the group which I may end up involved in, as well as the opportunity to swap between primary interests once I begin my research this year!

Who or what inspired you to pursue your research interests?

My main motivation to pursue research in general came from my experience with my masters project at Durham, which convinced me that I would be happy in further research. My project was based more around spectroscopy in an astrophysical sense, looking at the colour of the sky and building my own scattering model, but as I spoke more with other researchers with wider scopes, particularly Prof. Robert Fosbury of UCL, and looking at more biophysics both in my project and outside of it, I decided that I would enjoy this more interdisciplinary style of research.