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CURRICULUM VITAE, William
John O’Brien
Home Address: 27 Wickliffe Avenue, Finchley, London N3 3EL.
Home Telephone: +44 (0)20 8346 2329. Mobile: +44 (0)7976 769807.
E-mail: will_obrien74@hotmail.com,
Date of Birth: 30 January 1976. Marital Status: Single
Employment February 2001-date. Design engineer at Cryogenic Ltd.
Cryogenic Ltd is a small company based in West London that designs and manufactures equipment for low temperature physics research, principally high field superconducting solenoid magnets (<20T). The magnets that are to be cooled in liquid helium are manufactured as well as cryogen-free magnets. The company also manufactures cryostats, magnet support units, variable temperature inserts (used for creating a sample space within which the temperature can be lowered to -1.4K and also up to 350K), helium-3 inserts (within which temperatures as low as 0.3K can be achieved) and other items. The company serves research departments all over the world. For each type item on offer there is a standard range (with varying dimensions and field specifications for example) but, at extra cost, the company will design and build instruments specifically to accommodate the customer's existing equipment.
My
main responsibilities have been to draw the system for the customer's
inspection and its various components for machining, deciding what
grades of
wire to use in the magnets (magnets of higher field require thicker
wire on the
inside) and testing the systems once they have been assembled.
Postgraduate Degree October 1999 - September 2000 MRes Telecommunications. University College London. Details are on third page. This course is a one-year research masters course. 60% of course is taken up by the research project. 20% was made up by taught modules which were also part of the college's telecommunications MSc Course. The remaining part of the course was made up by the generic and transferable skills modules. Result: Pass
Undergraduate Degree September 1995 - July 1999 MPhys (Hons) Physics with Astrophysics, University of Manchester. Details are on page 4. This was a four-year degree course. The astrophysics element took up roughly 25% of the course. Result upper second (2:1) class.
A Level June 1994 Physics A Mathematics A Chemistry A
GSCE results June 1991 Mathematics B
<> June 1992 English C, English Literature C,Science B (2 GCSES),
Computing Experience: In my current employment I have principally been using AutoCAD version 14 for drawing the systems and the various components. Recently started to draw components using Autodesk Inventor 8, which is a much more powerful, though more complicated, design application than AutoCAD. I have had some basic training in LabVIEW 6.1. When designing magnets I have used some in-house software called 'Fieldworks' for making field calculations and on occasions I have used Vectorfields for more complex magnet designs.
I studied the C and C++ programming languages during my degree course. I used C++ to make calculations in my MRes research project. I studied some of the basics of JAVA in the Software Tools and Techniques module of the Mres course as an example of object oriented programming. I have recently started teaching myself Visual C++ .NET.
In the Software Tools and Techniques module I learned how to write web pages using HTML.
Other
activities: I have
performed in a significant number of
stage productions. It started when I was at school and then I joined
the Gilbert and Sullivan Society at Manchester University. I
performed
in four of the company's main productions and I was the society treasurer
during
my third year. Since returning to London I have participated in many
musical productions with various companies, most recently amateur opera
companies. In 2005 I played a leading role in Don Giovanni and
have directed scenes from Madam Butterfly and Fidelio. I have
been
taking regular singing lessons since 2001.
I regularly play 5-a-side football and recently I have been learning how to ply golf and tennis. I have also been skiing on many occasions.
I have written a web site which includes photographs of my family and friends, holiday photos, reviews of many of the productions in which I have appeared and some comical poetry amongst other things. The address is http://www.willobrien.com. In the early 1990's I designed an extensive board game in which a person assumes the role of a fantastical character and solve a huge labyrinth, having to deal with various monsters and pitfalls on the way. In 1999 I wrote a program in C++ to help make the progress of the game much swifter.. I have also written a web site advertising my professional qualifications (http://www.wjobrien.com/) and another for my parents' piano shop, http://www. knightsbridgepiano.com.
I have been very interested in astronomy for a long time. I own an 8" Schmitt-Cassegrain telescope with which I observed various stellar objects and have taken photographs of some of the planets. In October 2005 I joined the West of London Astronomical Society (WOLAS).
Laboratory Work Experience: I worked for four weeks in the summer of 1993 at the Randall Institute at Kings College, London. The work involved the analysis of the diffraction patterns of muscle myofibrils. In November 1994 I worked for three weeks in the physiology department at the University of Louvain in Brussels. This work involved the determination of the concentration of calcium in the leg muscles of mice. I wrote a report and gave a presentation at the end of the three weeks.
RESEARCH MASTERS COURSE DETAILS
RESEARCH PROJECT, 60%. the use of polarisation interleaving to reduce the level of crosstalk in mm-fibre radio systems.
For my research project I looked at a possible future means of broadband communications, a hybrid fibre millimetre radio network. The core of such a network is made up by fibre optic connections with the last drop to the customer provided by a wireless link at millimetre wavelengths. The mm-wavelength range is currently under-utilised due to high atmospheric attenuation. To overcome this a large concentration of remote antenna units, linked to a central office, could be used to deliver the modulated mm signal to the customer. Each antenna unit might serve an area of about 50m in diameter.
Dense
wavelength division multiplexing could be used
to utilise the optical bandwidth in the fibre most
efficiently.
Imperfect filtering at the demultiplexer
leads to crosstalk between channels. One way to reduce the amount
of crosstalk might be to use a scheme known as polarisation
interleaving, where
adjacent channels are launched at
orthogonal polarisations. Plane polarised light in an optical fibre
does
however become depolarised due to residual
birefringence
in the fibre's glass. This limits the
potential benefit of polarisation interleaving. I have performed
calculations
to show how the power in the crosstalk
varies as parameters such as the mm-frequency, the fibre length,
the
channel spacing and the width of the filter
function are varied.
Mark 50%
To read my dissertation, go to http://www.wjobrien.com/mresthesis.pdf 4 TAUGHT MODULES, 5% each.
Introduction to Telecommunications Networks, assessed by examination. Mark 55%
Public Telecommunications Networks.
The
assignment for this module was an essay based on Local Loop Unbundling,
Digital
Subscriber Line and
voice
over IP. Mark 65%
Telecommunications Transmissions Systems, assessed by examination. Mark 50%
Mobile and Personal Communications, assessed by examination. Mark 50%
GENERIC AND TRANSFERABLE SKILLS, 20%
Statistical Modelling and Data Analysis, assessed by examination.
This was mainly a mathematics course covering probability, Fourier transforms and convolution. The principles of simulation were also covered in this course.
Software Tools and Techniques
Included tuition of HTML, MS Word, MS Excel, C programming and an assignment involving C.
Software for Network Services and Design
This included an introduction to Object Orientated Programming and exercises in JAVA. The assignment included some of the JAVA exercises, the drawing of UML diagrams for those JAVA exercises and a written exercise in threading.
Research Processing and Practice This included a set of lectures and exercises based on project management, teamwork and presentation skills. The assessment involved
1
A report
and presentation of the research
project plan in November 1999.
2
The
design of a poster for the department's
presentation day at the end of March 2000 which briefly
describes
the state of progress of the project.
3
A paper
and presentation at the London
Communication symposium in September 2000.
4
Students are also
required to design a web site to
provide an on-line guide to the project.
DEGREE COURSE DETAILS
FIRST YEAR. (0% of final mark) All of the marks shown are percentages.
Semester 1 - Dynamics 86, Rays, Waves and Photons + Special Relativity 84, Gases, Liquids and Solids 82,
Calculus and Complex Numbers 72, Mathematical Methods 1 72. Introductory Astronomy 84.
Semester 2 - Vibrations and Waves 89, Electricity and Magnetism 82, Introduction to Thermal Physics 70, Physics of
the Solar System 76, Mathematical Methods 2 82.
First Year Laboratory (equivalent to 4 modules) 61
Overall mark for first year 75.5
SECOND YEAR. (15% of final mark)
Semester 3- Fundamentals of Quantum Mechanics 72, Electromagnetism 58, Mathematical Physics 66, The Galaxy
66, Lagrangian Dynamics 68, Electronics 61.
Semester 4 - Quantum Mechanics 82, Wave Optics 48, Thermal & Statistical Physics 86, Introduction to Observational
Astronomy 68, Complex Variables and Integral Transforms 76, General Physicst 69.
Second year Laboratory + Vacation Essay* (4.5 modules) 65
Overall mark for second year 67.7
THIRD YEAR. (35% of final mark)
Semester 5 - Particles, Nuclei and cosmology 48, Solid State Physics 40, Electromagnetic Radiation 44, Galaxies 52,
Advanced Quantum Mechanics 40.
Semester 6 - Statistical Mechanics 56,. Stars and Stellar Evolution 80, High Energy Astrophysics 86, Particle
Physics 86, General Physics If 64, General Physics 2f 72.
Combined mark for vacation essaytt, Design Study* and Laboratory (6 modules) 60
Overall mark for third year 60.5
FOURTH YEAR. (50% of final mark)
Semester 7 - Radio Astronomy 56, Superconductors and Superfluids 76, Physics of the Interstellar Medium 40, MPhys
project 1 (4 modules) ** 56, Group Project *** 59.
Semester 8 - Introduction to General Relativity and Cosmology 46, Frontiers of Astrophysics 57, Photonics 68,
Programming in C++ 66, General Physicsf 75, MPhys Project 2 (4 modules)** 68.
Overall mark for fourth year 61.7
RESULT - 62.2% upper second.
To read reports on my 3rd and 4th year degree projects, go to http://www.wiobrien.com/degree.html
t General Physics exams, which each count as 2 modules, tested material from all of the core modules that have been
taken.
ft The subject of my first vacation essay was "Electron Degeneracy". The subject of my second vacation essay was "The Conduction of Electricity in Solids".
My third year Design study was an essay about Gravitational Wave Detectors. In this essay I first briefly discussed the sources and properties of gravitational radiation. I went on to discuss existing resonant mass and interferometric detectors and proposed a possible design for resonant mass detector consisting of 5 metallic spheres. MPhys projects were carried out as a partnership between two students. My first MPhys project was an experimental project which involved the use of a Mach-Zehnder fibre optics interferometer for measuring temperature changes in water. In the second MPhys project we were presented with a shadowgraphic lens set-up for observing convection in a cylinder of water of low aspect ratio that a former MSc student had put together. Our tasks were to add two additional lenses to the set-up that would produce bigger images on a CCD without losing contrast and also to produce as many different convection patterns as we could.
*** The Group project is the only non-scientific module in the course. Within a group of seven I worked on an essay entitled "The State of Education" which discussed how a person's career choice is influenced by his or her education. We looked at how public exam results varied geographically in the U.K and how they differed between comprehensive and public schools, and between single sex and mixed schools. We also talked to employers to find out whether they felt that today's education system is sufficient to their needs. We made some recommendations as to how the education system might be improved. The main part of the assessment was the 10000-word essay. We were also required to give a 30-minute presentation to the rest of the class. I give the first half of that presentation. The presentation included some piece of interview footage with teachers at schools of various types and with some university students.