Profile – Molybdenum Zone

Education:

I went to Light Hall School, in the West Midlands for my GSCEs. I took A levels at Solihull Sixth Form College. My Undergraduate and Ph.D I took at the University of Sheffield.
Qualifications:

I have a M.Phys in Physics and a Ph.D. For my Ph.D I studied solid state physics.
Work History:

I have worked for varying amounts of time in Los Angeles (UCLA), Iows State University, The University of Utah, Technical university of Graz, Austria and of course Sheffield University.
Current Job:

I am on EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow. This means that I get to try lots of different pieces of science, a little like science sushi.

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The microscopes that you see in everyday use produce wonderful images and using them we have learnt much about how the world works. However, they stop working when you try to look at very small small things such as single molecules. If you want to know why this is ask me. So we use all the tricks we can think of to see things normal light would not let us. This type of science is very puzzle based, if we want to look at something really small we have to use what we know about the sample to cheat physics. Ask me about some of the ways we try to cheat.
My Typical Day:

Most of my day is spent talking to other scientists about how we can look at there samples. Sometimes some one will want to see the colour of a single molecules another day they might want to see inside a living fish.
What I'd do with the prize money:

I would either use it as a down payment on the new Aston Martin or buy my group a really nice coffee machine. Ok really I would pay for an artist to take the images we make and turn them in to art, I would then give this art away to coffee shops and museums, schools as talking points.

Ashley Cadby