Webinars

Join Dr Christian Diget to explore how atomic nuclei are made, from astrophysical processes to cutting-edge experiments. Journey through the nuclear chart, discovering the properties of the building blocks of our universe, and investigate how the many and varied isotopes are critical to our daily lives. 

Dr Christian Diget is a lecturer at the University of York and academic lead on the Binding Blocks project, which engages young people and the public with nuclear physics. He is an experimental nuclear physicist, and his research focuses on understanding nuclear reactions in exploding stars, as well as developing new cancer therapies based on radioactive nuclear isotopes.   

Stars are powered by nuclear fuel. Naturally, this raises the question of what happens once that fuel is exhausted. In astrophysics, we say the star has 'died,' but this death is rarely the end of the story. In this talk, we journey into the realm of stellar corpses, uncover their origins through the lens of quantum mechanics, and explore the astronomical observations that confirm the existence of these truly bizarre stellar zombies. 

Dr Arnau Rios is a theoretical nuclear physicist who studies quantum many-body systems with machine learning and quantum computing tools. He is an Associate Professor at the Department of Quantum Physics and Astrophysics and the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) since 2021. He began his research career with a PhD in 2007, followed by a postdoctoral stay at Michigan State University (USA, 2007-2009). He was at the University of Surrey from 2009 to 2021, as a Marie Curie and STFC Advanced Fellow, and as (Senior) Lecturer later. Dr Rios has published 53 refereed papers, supervised 5 PhD students, and taught at all levels of bachelor's and master's degrees. He is the current president of the Nuclear Physics Group at the Spanish Royal Physics Society. 

Targeted alpha therapy is a new approach to cancer treatment. It uses the destructive property of alpha radiation to kill cancer cells, while leaving healthy tissues unharmed.  

For these treatments to work, the radioactive atom that emits the alpha radiation must be correctly attached to a targeting molecule that guides the radioisotope to the cancer cells. How can we be sure that this has worked?

Before a treatment can be given to a patient, scientists must test it to check that it’s safe and correctly prepared. One important test is called radiochemical purity, which checks whether the radioactive material is properly attached to the targeting molecule.

In this talk, we explore how scientists design quality control procedures to meet the unique challenges of working with alpha emitting radioisotopes, and why these checks are essential for making targeted alpha therapy possible. 

Dr Katie Staunton-Mann is a Research and Development Physicist working in partnership with LabLogic in Sheffield and the University of York to develop quality control instruments for targeted alpha therapy.  

In December 2022, the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California, gave the first experimental demonstration of energy gain via nuclear fusion. This achievement has proven repeatable and recent experiments have demonstrated four-fold energy gains, releasing 8.6 MJ of energy using 2.1 MJ of laser energy. Those working on Inertial Fusion Energy aim to develop this process to the point where it can usefully deliver electrical power through the grid. 

In this talk, Dr John Pasley explores the cutting-edge research behind Inertial Fusion Energy, which involves igniting milligram quantities of fusion fuel in a pulsed fashion using high power lasers in a reaction that produces neither greenhouse gases nor radioactive waste products. 

Dr John Pasley is a member of the York Plasma Institute at the University of York. He works on High Power Laser interaction with matter and Inertial Fusion related science. In his spare time he enjoys photography and collecting, amongst other things, 1980's tech. He has also acted in several Bollywood movies. 

Wednesday 1 April 2026, 6.30pm to 7.30pm

Neutrinos are everywhere in the universe! One hundred trillion neutrinos are passing through your body every second, but the chance of one stopping is so small that over the course of your lifetime, just one neutrino might stop.  That makes this tiny elusive particle very tricky to measure and challenging to understand — there are many mysteries around the way these particles behave. 

Where do neutrinos come from? How do they fit into our current picture of the universe? How do we even know they exist? And how do we build particle detectors to measure their properties?  Join Dr Nicola McConkey as she tackles these topics and discusses how neutrino physics might hold the key to understanding some of the most fundamental questions about the universe. 

Dr Nicola McConkey is a lecturer at Queen Mary University of London. She is an experimental particle physicist who spends her time developing technology to make precision measurements of one of the universe’s most elusive particles — the neutrino. When not building neutrino detectors, she can be found folk dancing and playing music, including on one notable occasion playing violin inside of a particle detector at CERN! 

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