Recreating Volta’s pile

Earlier this month I was lucky enough to be invited to join the Naked Scientists radio show to build a voltaic pile in front of a live audience. You can listen here:  The story of the development of the pile is an interesting one. In 1799 Alessandro Volta was experimenting with some curious phenomena that had …

Learning to be an expert woman

In January this year I was lucky enough to be one of 30 women selected to take part in the first of the BBC’s ‘expert women‘ training days. This was followed up in February with an advanced training day. The reasons for the training days have been covered by many different writers, such as  here, here …