Profile

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Hannah Middleton

Looking for black holes and neutron stars in space!

My CV

  • Education:

    1994- 2001: Whittington Community Primary, 2001-2008: King Edwards Lichfield, 2009-2017: University of Birmingham (for undergraduate degree and PhD)

  • Qualifications:

    I did a PhD about Gravitational Wave Astrophysics at the University of Birmingham and before that I did a Physics with Astrophysics degree also at Birmingham. For my A-levels I did Physics, Maths, History and Geography.

  • Work History:

    My last job was as a PhD student at the University of Birmingham. I’ve also worked at the National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire (in the gift shop), at Tatanhill Airfield (in the maintenance hanger) and at the University of Birmingham Physics department during my PhD (doing examples classes and lab demonstrating).

  • Current Job:

    Astrophysics post-doctoral researcher at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

  • About Me:

    I’m an astrophysics researcher working in Australia at the University of Melbourne.

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    I live in Australia in Melbourne working on astrophysics data analysis. I’m originally from the UK and have moved to Australia for a job for 3 years.

    I love knitting, watching movies, going on walks, steam trains and a nice cup of tea!

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    Gravitational waves are ripples in space which come from really massive accelerating objects in the universe. Gravitational waves have been detected for the very first time in 2015 from the collision of two black holes which were 30 times more massive than our Sun and they have also been detected from colliding neutron stars (which are old dead stars) too in 2017. But there are even bigger black holes out there, which are millions of times more massive than our Sun and those ones haven’t been detected yet! I am working on trying to learn as much as possible about black holes when detections are made.

  • My Typical Day:

    Writing computer programs to learn about black holes and neutron stars.

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    Most of my time is spent on my laptop writing computer programs. It can be pretty frustrating especially when I’m trying to fix problems in my programs as they can be hard to find when something is wrong! We also meet up with the other members of our astrophysics group quite regularly to talk about what we are working on and discuss problems. In the last few months I spent a lot of time writing up my thesis for the end of my PhD. Plus I drink lots of tea!!

  • What I'd do with the prize money:

    Improve our fabric Universe!

  • My Interview

    • How would you describe yourself in 3 words?

      Tea-drinking knitter!

      What did you want to be after you left school?

      I couldn't decide!

      Were you ever in trouble at school?

      Nope! :)

      Who is your favourite singer or band?

      Elbow

      What's your favourite food?

      Pasta

      If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!

      Travel the world, be able to speak lots of languages and be able to play the drums!

      What don't you like about your current job?

      I spend most of my time inside.

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