Earlier this month we held our Particle Accelerator Enginering Annual Event by Zoom.  Obviously it was quite different from our normal day and half conference, and this year had a particular sadness as the physical event was due to be hosted by our colleagues in CERN.  


Read on to find out what our 2020 Poster Prize winner had to say, and for a link to the Presentations if you missed the event.Back to this year's Zoom event. If you missed the event, you can see some of the presentations in our 2020 event folder   As part of the event we had some fantastic poster presentations from students and early career colleagues.  The prize up for grabs this year was £100 and it gives me great pleasure to announce that our winner was Laurence Wroe.  Here's what Laurence had to say afterwards.

I have just finished the first year of my PhD in the John Adams Institute at the University of Oxford where, for my thesis, I am researching the utilisation of transverse forces in accelerating RF cavities. My supervisors Rob Apsimon (Lancaster University and Daresbury Laboratory), Suzie Sheehy (University of Oxford and Melbourne University) and Manjit Dosanjh (University of Oxford and CERN) encouraged me to enter the PAEN's 2020 Early-Careers Poster Competition with the research I am currently working on: Utilising Transverse Forces in Accelerating RF Cavities with an Azimuthally Modulated Design. Having spent the majority of the first-year of my PhD completing the JAI's graduate training course as well as working with my cohort to design a 3 TeV Muon Collider for acceleration in the SPS tunnel, the PAEN 2020 Annual Event was my first event at publicising and also getting feedback on my PhD research.  


Presenting the poster virtually behind my laptop was a new (and novel!) experience but I really enjoyed it and I thought that the engineers who visited my 'Zoom Room' engaged with the poster really well and asked great questions that have given me food for thought on taking my research forwards. I was then delighted to be informed that I had won the Poster Prize: I am hoping to write up the work into a paper in the coming months and so I'm particularly pleased that the research was well-received at this early stage! I was also happy to appear on the conference stream to 'accept' the award.


Having planned a short break in Cambridge, however, meant I dialled in whilst on the train, with the mandatory mask and poor signal going some way to obscure my gratitude...! Hopefully, next year's conference can take place in person and I look forward to hearing the community's updates in the meantime.


Any questions, comments or thoughts on the research presented in the poster are most welcome so please email  Laurence directly.  You can view the poster in our files section.


Congratulations to Laurence!


We do hope to be able to hold the 2021 event in person, in CERN, so do check back with us regularly, and we will see you there!