Niamh Kavanagh, PhD student: ‘I’m lucky to be in an industry that offers a sustainable career’

Niamh Kavanagh,  IRC PhD student at the Irish Photonics Integration Centre (IPIC)

“I had a hard time deciding what to do in college. I knew I really liked physics and felt that I probably wouldn’t hate it. And I didn’t; I loved it.

"From the outset, I loved the marriage between theory and experimentation. I started to get interested in photonics when I went on holidays to Spain and saw a light-up fountain show. How did the light follow the water?

When I came home, I read up on fibre optics; later that year, I picked the topic for a project. After a visit to the photonics group in Tyndall, I was really impressed by what I saw, so I applied for a summer internship in the summer after my second year in college.

“I started doing research with lasers, and I’ve been here ever since. Now, I’m coming to the end of year one of my PhD. We’re looking at using new types of fibres that have hollow cores, which offer much higher potential capacity to carry information.

“We need it: the increased use of the internet and phones across the world is threatening a capacity crunch, so we have to solve the problem of how to transmit all this data. Light technologies offer a solution, and we’re working with ModeGap (a partnership of various universities and research institutes across Europe) to develop this.

“The next big step is to increase fibre usage in the home. Another growth area is integrated photonics, which involves the use of tiny circuits that use light technologies. But it is equally important to ensure that research is communicated to a wider audience and that people understand the work of scientists.

“To this end, I’ve participated in Famelab at UCC, where speakers have three minutes to talk about their specialist topic to a non-specialist audience. Scientific language can be high-tech and jargon-filled, so talking to an audience really makes you think about the main message of your work.

“I’ve also contributed to the Boolean, a journal of articles by postgraduate students across all disciplines. And then there’s the SFI Smart Futures Programme, where we talk to students about science, technology, engineering and maths subjects. We’ve also done experiments with transition year students.

"Next, I want to finish my PhD, and maybe attend a conference or two. I'm lucky to be in an industry that offers a sustainable career. There's so much opportunity for growth." In conversation with Peter McGuire