My name is William Bate, and it has been a pleasure to meet many of you over the course of previous conference sessions and workshops organised by UKSP. I currently work as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Hertfordshire after completing my PhD at Queen’s University Belfast. My work has focused on small scale wave observations in the solar atmosphere and particle acceleration in solar flares.
During my career, I have been very grateful to UKSP as a route to understanding the work being undertaken at local institutions, resulting in many exciting collaborations. UKSP’s commitment to helping Early Career Researchers, both through platforming them and through signposting, is something that I think is fantastic but can be built upon and fostered. If elected, I intend to promote initiatives to this end, including further coaching and information being made available to those wanting to make the leap from PhD to PDRA level within our field.
As someone who has worked both on observational and simulation-based data, I believe that it is extremely important to encourage the links and feedback between these sections of our field. This can be achieved through data-driven simulations and synthetic observables, along with a strong grounding in theory. I believe that UKSP offers the best way to link these areas of expertise, resulting in a more complete picture. I want to encourage the use of this “full picture” approach in order to make best use of the strengths of different research groups nationwide.
Science communication is something very important to me, with my work presenting to wider groups resulting in many interdisciplinary collaborations across astrophysics and the sciences as a whole. The tools we use within solar physics are extremely powerful and can prove invaluable to other fields, with the reverse of course being true, as long as people are aware of them. I would aim to facilitate knowledge exchange between UKSP and similar groups across a range of scientific disciplines, specifically in terms of what we can learn from each other regarding methodology, scientific tools, and organisational approaches.
It would be an amazing opportunity to serve as a committed member of the UKSP Council, and I thank you for your consideration.