Hannah Doran

"Personality types: 1. Coach- I am very friendly and love collaborating on mini projects with my work colleagues at the University. I realise that my PhD thesis consists of mini projects that form the chapters of my thesis, and with the help of other colleagues from different areas of expertise we can combine our knowledge to produce some useful outputs (academic journals). For example, my second supervisor took on an MSc student in the summer and was able to adapt some old code to output key decay products from the nuclear fuel that is burnt inside a reactor. This project will help me assess how these products will decay with time and how their decay heat varies across longer timescales (10,000 - 100,000 years). 2. Coordinator- On occasion, I have to manager my supervisors in meetings when they go off topic. This gives me confidence that I have the potential to be a good leader in the future and I can motivate people to focus on the task at hand. Also, whenever there is a conference deadline I always make sure to give my supervisors at least a week's notice to read over my work before the submission date. Sometimes they don't read it, but it makes me feel accomplished that I can complete tasks ahead of the deadline and can prioritise. 3. Trainer- I love learning and finding out about new information every day, but I am also very organised and efficient with my goals. I do this by having a weekly plan and then daily tasks (2-3 maximum) that are manageable to tick off throughout the day. It is also very satisfying to have a completed tick list at the end of the day and this increases my motivation for the rest of the week. When I present my work in front of an audience, I also believe that my public engagement skills are strong and I can capture their interests by giving a brief overview of my topic and not necessarily go into the nitty gritty details. Maybe this is also because I am only a 1st year and my talks will become more complex once I gather results, but I find a lot of people asking me questions at the end because they can see my passion for the subject. "

"For my PhD, I am looking at effective ways to recovery and make use of decay heat that is released from radioactive waste produced from Nuclear Power. I am entering the second year of my PhD, which will involve lots of modelling, collecting and analysing results. I hope to focus on modelling the decay heat during the interim storage and long-term disposal stages of radioactive waste (when the waste is in dry storage facilities, cooling ponds or a geological disposal site). I hope to put a new idea forward for the Nuclear Industry to consider when handling their radioactive waste - not just to focus on its safety but also consider the heat asset of radioactive waste for recovery or energy production purposes. I really enjoy reading the recent literature on how the waste is stored and handled from each country. Every country adopts their own methods due to differences in public opinion, politics and the available funding. I also love talking to other researchers in the field to stay informed on recent activities and how this will impact the direction of my PhD. My Scholarship is £15,000 each year, but the transferable skills I will learn during my PhD will put me in a good place financially for future jobs. "

"Despite me staying in Academia for most of my life, I have dipped my toe into multiple STEM disciplines. When I was at college, I always had an interest in Physics and Geology. I was very curious about the world's natural landscapes when I went on walks with my parents - I used to collect gemstones, fossils and anything else I could find on the beach. I was also intrigued about our purpose in the Universe and why things happened on a fundamental level - I was a big fan of Professor Brian Cox on the TV! My dream to become the next female Brian Cox, in addition to a very enthusiast Physics teacher that reminded me of Doc from Back to the Future, I decided to study Physics with Astrophysics at the University of Glasgow. My life in Glasgow began, and I was able to travel to Warsaw in Poland for one summer on an internship that involved analysing data from the galactic halo of the Milky Way. After many years of lecture courses, exams and lab work, it was only until my 4th year that I took a course called 'Energy and the Environment'. It was then that I decided Physics and Astrophysics was becoming a bit too theoretical for me and I wanted to study renewable energy. I then studied a 1 year MSc in Sustainable Energy in the School of Engineering. I am glad I was brave to change career paths because it presented so many options to me for research and industry opportunities (Wind, Solar, Hydroelectric, Energy Storage, Nuclear etc). My MSc project brought back my geology roots which involved modelling a deep geothermal borehole and studying the heat flow in this geological environment. I then knew that Geothermal energy was another passion of mine. Through my current supervisor and my undergraduate Physics supervisor, I was offered a PhD scholarship which combined both Geothermal and Nuclear Physics. All in all, my career route has been confusing and not followed a straight path. However, my passion and hard work in each topic of interest was the main reason that led to my success. "

"In my free time I am a Zumba enthusiast, and you will often see me outside when the sun is shining exploring new places. When I’m not outside, I love to watch a good Disney movie after a long week at the office. I also enjoy playing board games and computer games."

"A typical day for me is on the computer, reading research papers from the literature, communicating with my supervisors via email and/or meetings and writing code for my models. At the moment I am writing code in C++ to read in Nuclear Decay Data to compute the decay heat that is released from a typical radioactive waste package, and how this is changing with cooling time. On the odd occasion I attend conferences and external meetings to network and present my work to research/industrial bodies within the nuclear industry. Once a week I also visit my second supervisors research centre in East Kilbride to discuss my PhD goals. I am also involved in a lot of outreach activities alongside my research. I am on the board of the Universities PhD Society and have organised a 'Women in STEM' Panel discussion as well as organising regular virtual writing and wellbeing sessions. I also love my STEM ambassador work and have occasional meetings to discuss future outreach projects (virtual STEM workshop activity for the 2020 Glasgow STEM Academy). "

"AS level: Geology (B)A-Levels: Physics (C), Maths Mechanics (B), Chemistry(B)BSc Physics with Astrophysics - 2:1MSc Sustainable Energy - Distinction Current role: PhD in Systems, Power and Energy research division (combines Nuclear and Sustainability expertise)"