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Brian Murray

About to have my first live chat with the students. Looking forward to it!

Curriculum Vitae

  • Education:

    Douglas Community School and University College Cork

  • Qualifications:

    I've a degree in maths and physics, and I'm working on a PhD in physics.

  • Work History:

    Musician and PhD student

  • Current Job:

    PhD student in optical communications

  • Employer:

    University College Cork (UCC) and Tyndall National Institute

  • Favourite thing to do in science: Try things that no one else in the world has done before!

  • About Me: I'm Brian, a PhD student from Cork. When I'm not doing science, I'm happiest watching sports, reading books or playing music music!

  • Read more

    My favourite type of books are fantasy (if it’s got a magic sword or a dragon in it, I’m buying it!). For sports, I’m big into running, though I prefer downhills rather than uphills… Oh, and I’m also a violinist – I play in a string trio at weddings, where we cover rock and pop songs on two violins and a cello. 🤘

  • My Work: I'm a scientist that looks at how we can make the internet faster and greener in the future. I wanna find the best way to send information between your computer and the internet using light - that's called optical communications.

  • My Typical Day: I'm not a scientist who has to wear a white coat - my lab doesn't have any chemicals! My lab is a photonics lab, which means our research is all about light. I work with tiny, high-power lasers, and really fast electronics to try and send data over long distances (up to 100 kilometres). Somedays I have to use microscopes to see if the lasers are connected correctly, and other days I have to write computer code to analyse the data and see if it's coming out correctly at the other end.

  • My Interview

    • How would you describe yourself in 3 words?

      Happy, chilled, hungry?

      Who is your favourite singer or band?

      Muse

      What's your favourite food?

      Shepherd's pie with loads of coleslaw on top. Don't knock it till you've tried it!

      What is the most fun thing you've done?

      Drove to the middle of nowhere in Iceland late at night to see the Northern Lights!

      What did you want to be after you left school?

      I wanted to be a maths teacher, but then I started liking physics more and more as I went through college.

      Were you ever in trouble at school?

      Nothing serious, but they ALWAYS gave out to me for running in the yard...

      What was your favourite subject at school?

      English, until the essays got really long. Then maths, because you had to write less!

      What's the best thing you've done as a scientist?

      Sent information down a wire so fast, that it would be like watching 50 Netflix shows in a second!

      If you weren't a scientist, what would you be?

      Maybe a musician - my brother is a professional violinist with an orchestra, so I get a bit jealous sometimes when I hear them play!

      If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!

      I wish to be fluent in every language. I wish to know the Euromillions numbers for the next few weeks. And I wish for three more wishes!

      Tell us a joke.

      So there's this circus, and it's looking for a new act to join them. This girl comes up to the ringmaster, and says "Pick me, pick me! I can do a really good bird impression!". The ringmaster is like, "Nah, that doesn't sound impressive enough." So the girl gets angry and flies away...

  • My profile link:
    https://green.imascientist.ie/profile/brianmurray/

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