From a young age Alexia was interested in finding out ‘why’. In their childhood this manifested in a deep interest in mythology, and an avid love of fictional worlds. As Alexia got older, she started specialising in science, at first in secondary school, during which she did placements at Imperial College looking into particle physics. The first, (the MICE, was based around muons and neutrinos; and the second looking at the effect of cooling cycles on scintillating fibres, at LHCb. She then moved to read physics at the same institution, and has since 2013 been studying for her BSci. During this time she has done a specialist project on double pendulums, exploring her interest in the chaotic universe.
Working at the Imperial Festival (2015) with light painting
Chaotic Pendulums
Built a simulation (with a partner) of the famous double pendulum system which follows an equation of motion that may be derived entirely from classical mechanics. This simulation was then used to investigate the chaotic properties of the system.
LHCb
Worked on LHCb, an experiment based at the LHC at CERN looking into B-physics, at Imperial College London. Worked on hardware, testing scintillating fibre samples under cooling cycles for the new particle tracker.
MICE
Won a Nuffield scholarship to work on the Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment at Imperial College London, during the Single Station Test analysis. Conducted analysis and produced a report on light yield as a function of momentum within the MICE tracker single station. Received Exscitec Platinum Award.