Who are you?

I'm a British experimental nuclear physicist, mainly focusing on measurements of nuclear systems relevant to astrophysics. I was educated at Cambridge (MSci) and York (PhD), and did postdocs in South Africa (iThemba LABS with Stellenbosch and Witwatersrand Universitieis) and France (IPN Orsay, now IJCLab) before moving to the US. I usually go by "Phil". I silently judge you if you spell my name "Phillip" in emails.

What motivates you?

Mainly fear but also cheese. Sometimes spite.

I'm taking one of your courses and I'm struggling - what should I do?

Talk to me! I'm always happy to help. I have office hours but if you can't make them or want a reserved time to discuss something then get in touch.

Your jokes are terrible.

This isn't a question but it's something that I hear frequently. Fortunately, my terrible sense of humour is a great source of amusement for me.

You were supposed to do something for me and didn't.

Oops. Call me and tell me off.

I'm a student looking for a project or a nearly finished PhD looking for a postdoc position. What should I do?

If you're looking to work with me then give me a call and we'll discuss it. If you're not sure if you want to work with me, that's understandable (I feel like that myself sometimes). If you want to know what it's like to work with me then I can put you in touch with my former students so they can tell you all of my guilty secrets and bad habits.

I'm using a code that you wrote and it's a buggy, glitchy mess. How do I get help?

Perform an exorcism and if that doesn't drive the bugs out, send me an email. If you're using one of my codes hosted on GitHub it's often useful to raise an issue on there rather than emailing me directly because then we have some documentation of the problems encountered, but that's just a friendly bit of guidance not a hard rule.

Why are all of the pictures on your website of a stuffed toy?

I'm adding proper photos as I go along but that's Percival the Pangolin and he's the group mascot. He's also an expert on Giant Resonances which is why he's posing with Harakeh and van der Woude.