Can you introduce yourself, your role in the university and tell us a bit about your background?
I am Bradley Cheal; I am a professor of physics. I am the Deputy Head of Department with responsibility for education. So, I am the Director of Teaching and Learning, and my research is within the nuclear physics group. I teach first year maths and third year quantum and atomic physics. I went to school and grew up in Cheltenham, I did a physics and maths degree at the University of Warwick and then a PhD in nuclear physics at the University of Birmingham. I then went to the University of Manchester where I was a postdoctoral research assistant, then I became a research fellow and moved across to the University of Liverpool and was appointed to a lectureship a year later.
Why did you choose to work in the University of Liverpool?
When I was working at the University of Manchester, I had a research fellowship which meant that I was funded directly from a research council for five years. The terms of that fellowship allowed me to transfer from one university to another, if I wanted to. I saw that the University of Liverpool was interested in expanding its research portfolio to include what I was doing, so I decided to move the fellowship across to the University. When I came to look around one day, I was shown around by Rodi Herzberg. He took me on a tour and showed me the facilities in the Central Teaching Labs and we went inside the GFlex, and he started chatting to the students. What I was really impressed by was that he knew who the students were, and it was all very informal and there was a nice close relationship between the staff and the students. I very much liked the interaction between the staff and students and decided that it was a place that I wanted to work. I also felt that research wise it was a place that I could continue to progress in an area where my work complemented the work of other people here.
What does a typical workday involve for you?
I try and divide things up so I’m doing my teaching, my research and my department administration and of course that ends up being spread out across the week. One day I might end up doing just one of those things. If I’m teaching like in semester one that takes priority, but since I became Director of Teaching and Learning I will often be responding to queries by email which cannot be predicted. When I am not teaching, I have a bit more time to think ahead about how to improve my teaching and, in terms of my department role, currently we are undergoing a curriculum review so I have to think about how the course we offer can be improved and how to respond to student feedback. At the same time, I look after the administration and at the moment am trying to improve the timetable. For my research, I am writing papers or helping PhD students. I have a couple of PhD students that I am currently supervising. I am also writing a paper on education research.
What research are you currently undertaking?
My main area of physics research is laser spectroscopy. This involves looking at nuclear properties by firing lasers at atoms with different nuclei. If you tune the laser to the right frequency then you can excite electrons between their energy levels, so by seeing how they respond you can find very precisely what the energy levels in an atom are. On a very high-resolution level you see that electron energy levels are actually sensitive to the properties of the nucleus, not just the element, but also the isotope. By studying the nuclei, you can find properties such as their size, shape, the magnetic moment and their quantum spin. We go overseas to somewhere like CERN in Switzerland or Jyväskylä in Finland to do these experiments. You produce the radioactive nuclei in a reaction by hitting them with high energy beams of protons from a particle accelerator, these are then quickly transported out electrostatically, as they only live for perhaps milliseconds. They are then sent down vacuum pipes, filtered, manipulated in some way and taken to the laser spectroscopy station. We take the data at the laboratory and then come back to Liverpool to analyse it fully.
What is your favourite part of this research?
My favourite part of the research is that it is quite broad in what you can do. Some people do their research because they are very interested in the end result, I am too, but I also like the process of what we do. It’s not just nuclear physics but we’re interrogating the nucleus by looking at atomic properties so that is atomic physics which is very different. At the same time, we’re looking at those energy levels using adjustable frequency lasers so there’s a lot of laser physics there. We are also using radioactive particles, and as they are transported down evacuated pipes there’s vacuum physics because there’s lots of pumps that pump all the air away. There’s lots of things going on it’s not just nuclear physics. It’s like the corner stone of all of these different fields. That’s what I like most of all about studying physics is that it’s a broad field with many different areas.
Why did you choose to pursue a career in the Department of Physics?
I had already become a laser spectroscopist and that was my tool for studying physics, this is very different from what other nuclear physicists in this department do. They study the properties of nuclei by looking at how they decay. They produce the radioactive particles and wait for them to decay looking for alpha and beta particles and gamma rays. By studying the nucleus differently, I had something to offer that complemented what was being done within the department. I also felt more independent being able to do so. When I first came here, I already knew some people within the nuclear group here as we had met up at conferences and when Rodi gave me the tour I really liked the personable nature between the staff and the students here.
How have your past experiences shaped your approach to teaching and research?
I was someone who when I was at school only wanted to be an electrician and leave as soon as possible. Then I was told to be electrician I would have to go to college, and I only agreed to this because the people who would be staying on for sixth form, I liked a little bit more. Then I went to the University of Warwick and that was my first time living away from home and I struggled with that, I didn’t want to go away to university. I spent my first year wondering if I was doing the right degree, spent my second year wondering if I wanted to do a degree at all and my third and fourth year wondering if I now could do a degree after all of that uncertainty. So, it was a difficult time, I found lectures very much being talked at and that was impersonable. When I was an undergraduate a member of staff who was a lecturer would pick on someone in the lecture hall, get them to the front and make them present their solution on the blackboard. I remember thinking at the time, I would never have believed you if you told me I would go on to be a university lecturer, but I remember saying to myself that I would never ever pick anyone out in that way and that is a promise that I have kept and often think back to. There was a lecturer who gave out student evaluation forms and the next lecture he decided to tell the student that whoever it was that said they ‘would like more examples’ should go to the library and find them for themselves. From that moment I decided that I would take student feedback seriously and act appropriately. I like to have a personable nature in my teaching philosophy. Members of staff here when they are teaching observe other people’s lectures and I observed Robert Page’s lecture where he gave students exercises to do in the lecture. I found this very inspiring and then integrated in into my own lectures.
Did you face any challenges along the way and how did you overcome them?
The challenge that I had is that I was quite anxious about going to university, when you leave home and everyone that you knew for the first time and go and live somewhere else, that is a big part in someone’s life. I didn’t settle in very well for my undergraduate degree and you spend a lot of time full of self-doubt about whether you are doing the right thing. Then later you spend time wondering if you’ll be able to do what you’re trying to do. I decided to keep with it because the original reasons I had for doing a physics degree still stood. I think that uncertainty has always been a problem. If I was to have my time again, I wouldn’t necessarily have done anything differently, but I wish I was more confident at the time that I was doing the right thing. I think that I persevered and kept going because I was doing the right thing. When I went to do my PhD, I had a much nicer time and that’s when I felt like things started to turn around. I have continued with my research which has been going well, but since starting as a lecturer I have been more and more involved with teaching and that turns out to the part I enjoy just as much if not more.
How would you describe the environment at the University of Liverpool?
I think the University has a nice environment. I do like the fact that it is a very informal environment, the staff are informal, and we have our open-door policy. Students hopefully do feel that they can go and speak to any staff member at any time or arrange a suitable time and sit down and talk about whatever troubles them or the difficulties they are having with the course and the staff member will listen and be empathetic. When I first started teaching, I was a tutor for third year quantum mechanics and a student came to see me and she was clearly very upset and worried about how the course was going and we were able to sit down, and I could talk about things from scratch and by the time she left the office she was much happier and went home smiling. I think that is an example of a supportive, friendly environment and that is what would give me the greatest job satisfaction of feeling like you have helped someone.
What advice would you give someone considering a career in physics?
Physics is a very broad area, so there will be something to interest everyone. But when they leave us and they go into industry or academia, there will be a whole range of different fields. It is certainly something I would encourage for people to come and study physics - it is a very interesting subject. It is a subject that underpins engineering and chemistry and other fields of study, and we have links with those departments. We collaborate with the chemistry department and have a Materials Innovation Factory and an Institute for Renewable Energy. It could be that someone wants to work in nuclear physics, into the properties of nuclei or particle physics, or they might want to investigate the applications in society of nuclear power or the applications of medical physics which we also have as a research speciality. There are many different ways that physics can be applied and the skills that you learn as a physicist can be applied in different areas. The mathematical side is used in finance, or the programming skills can be used in coding which of course can be redeployed in a completely different context. I think physics is an exciting area - you are looking at the fundamental building blocks of the universe and everything around us which supports so many other fields of study. But the things that you can do with the skills of a physicist are very wide.
What are you hoping to achieve in the future?
That’s probably the hardest question, I tend not to think beyond the following week! In terms of my role as Director of Teaching and Learning we always have long term goals, like how can we rework our degree programmes, so students feel as though they are supported right from the beginning, and they build up to where they want to be when they leave. So, they might have structured support in the beginning like in workshops and then they may grow in independence so they can be more confident when they graduate. We are always thinking about how we continue to improve that to enhance employability. We are looking to put in more opportunities for students to be able to spend more time in industry, so there is always this long-term plan to just keep revising the program, because no teaching course can ever really be perfect. It is about continuously reflecting and improving as time goes on. For my physics research one of my goals is to measure the size of a nucleus when it has so many protons it’s about to have one of them fall off. These are the nuclei that are at the far left of the nuclear chart, so they are known as neutron deficient or proton rich. If you have lots of protons compared with the number of neutrons then they decay by proton emission which is where the protons just drip away. This is called the proton drip line, towards that line there are proton emitters where a nucleus has so many protons it’s just about to lose the outermost proton. We assume the radius of this nucleus will be quite large, and we will be able to measure this.
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