º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ the lecture
Whether you realise it or not, magnetic materials are ubiquitous in modern day technologies.
For example, they underpin the National Grid’s transformers, generators in wind turbines, magnetic hard drives, and the microphones and speakers embedded in our smart devices.
As children – and for some of us still as adults – the invisible force that magnets exert on some objects is akin to a magical force we can exert on the world. But how can we use this magic to work towards Net Zero?
In her Inaugural Lecture, Professor Morrison will discuss the unique properties of different classes of magnetic materials and how they could be used to reduce energy consumption. She will explore whether – by designing more efficient refrigeration technologies or alternative approaches to harvesting waste energy – these unique properties offer opportunities we can exploit.
She will talk about the techniques that she and other physicists use to probe these materials to understand what makes them work and how we can better engineer them for energy-related applications.
º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ the lecturer
Professor Kelly Morrison specialises in the characterisation of magnetic materials for energy applications, including magnetic refrigeration, thermal energy harvesting and spintronics.
Whilst a PhD student at Imperial College London, she worked on a variety of magnetic and superconducting materials, focusing on the magnetocaloric effect for more efficient magnetic refrigeration.
She won the Anne Thorne thesis prize for her work, developing the use of a novel microcalorimeter to identify signatures of different types of phase transitions in magnetocaloric materials.
She moved to º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ in 2013 to take up a Lectureship and redirected her research interests towards magnetic thin films, in particular for spintronic or energy harvesting applications. In 2017, she secured an EPSRC Fellowship for her work on the spin Seebeck effect in magnetic thin films.
She is actively involved with several external panels and advisory bodies, including for the EPSRC and Institute of Physics as well as neutron facilities such as ISIS and the ESS.
She has served on the East Midlands Institute of Physics committee for more than eight years, most notably helping to create the I’m a Physicist Girlguiding badge that has been completed by more than 40,000 girls since its launch in 2019.
For further information on this lecture, please contact the Events team.
