A PhD research student at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation has been shortlisted for the 2014 Institute of Physics Early Career Physics Communicator Award. Claire Le Cras, who is in the third year of her PhD working on stellar populations under the supervision of Professor Claudia Maraston and Dr Daniel Thomas, was nominated for the public engagement and outreach she has carried out during her time at the ICG. In particular, Claire has developed a novel way to explain the life cycle of stars through dance, first developing a routine for her entry to Famelab 2014 (in which she was the South East region runner-up) and then expanding this into a workshop for dance students as part of the SEPnet Public Engagement Course.
A still from Claire’s lifecycle of stars dance workshop.
Along with the other three finalists, Claire now has to give a short presentation at the awards ceremony, which will take place at the Institute of Physics on Tuesday 25th November 2014. The judges will include Professor Jon Butterworth from UCL, who will give a keynote talk on Communicating Smashing Physics.
