Suzanne Lyn Sheehy (born 1984) is an Australian accelerator physicist who runs research groups at the universities of Oxford and Melbourne, where she is developing new particle accelerators for applications in medicine.

Suzie Sheehy
Suzie Sheehy
Born
Suzanne Lyn Sheehy

1984 (age 39–40)
Alma materUniversity of Melbourne (BS)
University of Oxford (DPhil)
AwardsRoyal Society University Research Fellowship (2017)
Scientific career
FieldsAccelerator physics
InstitutionsUniversity of Oxford
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
ThesisDesign of a non-scaling fixed field alternating gradient accelerator for charged particle therapy (2010)
Doctoral advisorKenneth Peach[1]
Websitesuziesheehy.com

Early life and education

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Sheehy was born in Mildura in 1984.[2][3] She moved to Melbourne as a child, and was inspired to study physics at a young age by her teachers at Parkdale Primary and Mentone Girls' Grammar School.[2] She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Melbourne in 2006.[4] In 2010 she earned a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford, where she worked in the John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science.[4] Her DPhil was part of the PAMELA project, focussed on designing non-scaling fixed-field alternating gradient accelerators for charged particle therapy[5] supervised by Kenneth Peach.[1]

Research and career

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In 2010 Sheehy was awarded a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 fellowship in high intensity hadron accelerators.[4] She was part of the collaboration that achieved the first compact electron accelerator EMMA in 2011.[6] She was appointed to a joint position in Intense Hadron Accelerators with the University of Oxford and Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) in 2015, and is now a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Oxford.[4]

Public engagement

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Sheehy is a science communicator and public speaker. Working with Emmanuel Tsesmelis, during her DPhil Sheehy designed a particle physics outreach show Accelerate! for 11- to 18-year-old children in the United Kingdom which later also ran in Germany.[6] She was responsible for training presenters and delivering shows and workshops.[6] The training was delivered as part the CERN teacher educational program.[6] As part of the program, they made a YouTube video explaining How to Make a Cloud Chamber. It has received over 100,000 views.[7] Sheehy worked with the Royal Institution to create videos about particle accelerators.[8][9] She gave the 2012 National Space Academy keynote talk.[10] She appeared on Discovery Channel's Impossible Engineering.[11] She was a speaker at 2018 TEDx Sydney.[12]

In 2022 she published her first book of popular science: The Matter of Everything: Twelve Experiments that Changed Our World (Bloomsbury).[13]

Awards and honours

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References

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  1. ^ a b Sheehy, Suzanne Lyn (2010). Design of a non-scaling fixed field alternating gradient accelerator for charged particle therapy. ora.ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. OCLC 757139208. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.533881.  
  2. ^ a b "proFile of Suzie Sheehy". profmagazine.com. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  3. ^ "Dr Suzie Sheehy: 'The eureka moment may come once in your career, or never'". the Guardian. 16 April 2022. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
  4. ^ a b c d e "Suzie Sheehy | University of Oxford Department of Physics". www2.physics.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  5. ^ "ASTEC: Suzie Sheehy - Research Fellow". www.astec.stfc.ac.uk. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  6. ^ a b c d e "REF Case study search". impact.ref.ac.uk. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  7. ^ Steele, Andrew (12 July 2011), "How to make a cloud chamber", youtube.com, retrieved 21 June 2018
  8. ^ The Royal Institution (18 December 2012), Suzie Sheehy - Thorium Fuelled Particle Accelerators, retrieved 21 June 2018
  9. ^ "Particle Accelerators for Humanity - YouTube". YouTube. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  10. ^ "National Space Academy - Dr Suzie Sheehy". nationalspaceacademy.org. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  11. ^ "Suzie Sheehy". IMDb. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  12. ^ "Suzie Sheehy - TEDxSydney". TEDxSydney. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  13. ^ Sheehy, Suzie (2022). The Matter of Everything : Twelve Experiments That Changed Our World. London, UK: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-5266-1895-5. OCLC 1303074917.
  14. ^ Anon (2017). "Suzie Sheehy". royalsociety.org. London: Royal Society. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  15. ^ Physics, Institute of. "HEPP Group Science in Society Prize Winners". www.iop.org. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  16. ^ "VC honours student civic campaigners – The Oxford Student". The Oxford Student. 10 June 2010. Retrieved 21 June 2018.