Our student experience
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Our PGR students are engaged in exciting research programmes across the whole spectrum of Physics. The PGR student cohort is very diverse: across 221 students, more than 33 nationalities are represented.
Student representation
There is a vigorous and dynamic Student Representative activity in the Graduate School. The Reps are student-selected and meet formally 6 times in the year as the Student-Staff Consultative Committee. This group is chaired by a PGR student and meets to review and plan activities, and deal with any issues. Each research theme selects two reps, and there are also specific reps for Safety issues, for PGR Teaching, and for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
PGRs who teach
Each academic year, about 100 of our PGRs take part in undergraduate teaching as a paid activity. This can take many forms: leading small teaching groups, lab demonstrating, marking and feedback, computer lab teaching. The Graduate School organises a Community of Practice for this activity which is a focus for targeted training events and a forum for the sharing of best practice. The aim is to support PGRs to manage the commitment alongside their research and to assist the development of key career skills.
Meet our students
Find out more about the Graduate School directly from some our students:
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Alex Petkov
"I'm working on devices for high voltage applications (suitable for power lines and data centres). More specifically, I'm studying gallium oxide as a promising material, because of its high breakdown field."
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Angus Siberry
"The topic of my research is modelling radiation emitted from radionuclide-containing materials and the subsequent effects on surrounding media. The direct test case for this is in the decommissioning of high-level nuclear waste such as spent fuel."
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Emmanuel Bempong-Manful
"My topic is the bases of extragalactic radio jets. I am mapping the inner structure of a sample of powerful extragalactic radio jets in order to resolve the jet outflows. The results will provide new insights into the physics driving the observed jet structure in extragalactic radio sources and allow for new constraints on jet physics."
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Jake Franklin Bulmer
"I study quantum photonics. This means I'm trying to think about how we can use quantum states of light to achieve things beyond what is possible by harnessing only classical physics."
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Jingwen Li
"I work on hard sphere nucleation rates with colloids in nano- and micron-scale. Hard spheres exhibit a thermodynamic transition from fluid to crystal phase, which has been known for decades. However, the simulation nucleation rates have a large gap between simulations and experiments, by up to 13 orders of magnitude. I am trying to investigate this discrepancy."
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Johannes Allotey
"My research is to build a robust, accurate and flexible tool to correct for the direction-and-frequency dependent leakages in small and large (SKA size datasets) low frequency interferometric datasets, and then proceed to probe the magnetic field distribution in the ICM and IGM using the polarised sources detected with high level of statistical confidence."
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Lakshan Ram Madhan Mohan
"I work on the LHCb experiment located at CERN. My research tries to understand one of the most exciting anomalies seen in particle physics."
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Lili Alderson
"I study the atmospheres of exoplanets, using space-based telescopes such as Hubble. My goal is to analyse planets at multiple wavelengths to help further our understanding of how atmospheres work and how the properties of different telescopes can affect the precision of our observations."
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Mac Curtis
"I am investigating the effects of strain on superconductivity using a mixture of computational approaches on a square lattice model and some analytical symmetry arguments - specifically focusing on the unconventional superconductor Sr2RuO4."
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Upon arriving in Bristol, I was swiftly welcomed into my research group. There was a sociable atmosphere, so I got to know people quite quickly. There have been lots of chances to work with a wide range of people, all coming from different places and backgrounds which has given me a lot of opportunities to learn and grow as a researcher.
I like that the astrophysics group at Bristol has a fairly diverse range of research interests while still being quite a tight-knit community - there’s lots of expertise when you need advice, but no one is intimidating to ask for help.
My experience was made even better by the support I received from the school, my supervisor and astrophysics group which made me feel welcomed and integrated into the group effortlessly. My advice would be choosing to do a research degree in Bristol Physics could possibly be one of the best decisions you would ever make in your academic/research journey.