We held our member development meeting in October and were pleased to welcome two speakers, Danielle Hughes and Peggy Jackson. Both young women shared inspiring stories about their work.
Danielle is an experimental physicist and surface scientist. She discussed the work she has conducted during her PhD, particularly about nuclear fusion reactors. When exposed to extreme temperatures and particle bombardment, the materials lining the inside wall of a nuclear fusion reactor see surface and subsurface damage which decreases their lifetime. Danielle has been developing nanolayers of diamond-like carbon and tungsten to act as protective coatings against helium particles, a product of the nuclear fusion reaction. In her talk she discussed different layer configuratio
ns from single layers, up to 16 alternating layers. After exposure to helium plasma, the damage observed depends on the initial configuration and exposure temperature. She highlighted that thin layers appear to reduce surface and sub-surface damage to the underlaying material.
Peggy is in her final year of studying speech pathology and is about to embark on a year of placements in rural South Australia, from her home in Lucindale! Her special interest is in diagnosing and treating communication and swallowing disorders across all ages. These disorders include issues related to speech sounds, language comprehension and expression, voice quality, fluency (such as stuttering), and social communication skills. Peggy is SI Adelaide’s 2025 Olive Johnston Travel Award scholarship winner. We are proud to have played a small part in her journey.