I coordinate public engagement and outreach activities in the Particle Physics sub-department. I set up a science festival stall and run this at around ten events per year including Stargazing Oxford, Oxford IF, ATOM Festival and others, reaching several thousand people each year. I have done public and school talks and demonstrations and supervised work experience students. I work with the Abingdon Science Partnership and the Institute for Research in Schools (IRIS) to engage school students with particle physics through research projects.
I pioneered the idea of using fan fiction to engage a diverse online audience. My stories using the My Little Pony cartoon characters to engage readers with science have clocked up a view-count of over 100,000. For this I received an MPLS Impact Award for Public Engagement with Research and was highly commended for the Vice Chancellor’s Award 2019.
From 2019-2021, I was chosen as a Public Engagement with Research Leader by the university, with the task of promoting and developing a positive culture towards public engagement within Oxford Physics. As lockdown restrictions have suspended normal activities, I have produced videos for the department YouTube channel and arranged training and equipment to allow all physicists at Oxford to get involved.