Lumen Summer 2017 - Flipbook - Page 10
stor y by I an W i l l i am s
“Comparing theory predictions like
mine, with experiment, is the way in
which we test our understanding
of the universe.
Phiala Shanahan
Photo by Randy Larcombe
Probing the fabric
of our universe
A
ward-winning researcher Phiala
Shanahan is working in an area
that9s both inûnitesimally tiny
and inûnitely large.
She9s trying to unravel the mysteries
of protons and neutrons and even
tinier subatomic particles such as
gluons and quarks, which form the
building blocks of our known universe.
Phiala graduated from the University
with a ûrst class honours degree in
High Performance Computational
Physics in 2011 and has been
impressing at the highest level since.
She won the Alumni University
Medal for both her honours degree
and her PhD, and in July this year
she was awarded the Bragg Gold
Medal for the best Australian PhD
in Physics in 2015.
During her PhD Phiala studied the
mysterious properties of quarks and
gluons – the subatomic particles which
make up the proton – and her insights
are expected to lead to further work
by other labs around the world.
8 Lumen | Summer 2017
