Before coming to Crete I graduated from Cork Insitutute of Technology (CIT) with a B.Sc. in “Applied Physics and Instrumentation” in 2004. As part of completeing the B.Sc. a five month project was undertaken. This project, entitled “Quality Surveillance Algorithms for Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifiers”, was carried out in the Information and Communication Network (ICN) Department at Siemens AG research facility in Munich. The project entailed research into how the aging of components with the EDFA can be monitored using algorithms. From a mathematical model, the key parameters needed to detect the degradation/aging of the EDFA were determined. In addition to theoretical work, optical experiments were carried out to determine a technique to measure the required parapeters. A procedure was developed to test the feasibility and accuracy of the EDFA model.
From my experience in Siemens AG, I developed an interest in optics and decided to pursue this interest. I started my PhD in September 2004 with the Quantum Optics Group under the supervision of Dr. Síle Nic Chormaic, in the area of “Control of cold rubidium atoms“.
I built the first cold atom experiment in South-Africa at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and then moved on to work at Extreme Light Infrastructure in Prague