A student at Alton College has won a national award for his contributions to space research.
Oliver Withers-Clark, who excelled in A Levels in English Literature, Physics and Mathematics, received a Highly Commended Award for Research Skills at the annual ceremony of the Institute for Research in Schools (IRIS) Awards last month.
Working with IRIS is an amazing opportunity that encourages young people to get involved with academic research, setting them up with skills that will serve them well at university and beyond.
As a student on Alton College’s new Space Technologies Programme, Oliver completed extracurricular original research on stellar spectroscopy and identifying unusual features in distant stars. This research project interrogated data from the Spitzer Space telescope, a telescope that uses the infra-red spectrum to reveal a whole new set of stellar objects to explore.
Oliver explored hundreds of detailed graphs called ‘spectral signatures’ and diligently researched the causes of the features on each one he viewed. His tenacity in searching for the explanations for these unusual features led to him contacting one of the scientists who had originally worked with the data, giving him further insight into the research.
In addition to receiving the Highly Commended Award, Oliver was also invited to present his research poster about the Spitzer telescope to the annual IRIS Conference earlier this year. For this, he was awarded a special certificate by Ashley Grute, Assistant Principal for Alton’s Curriculum.
Fiona Pope is a Physics Lecturer at Alton College, and helped to supervise Oliver’s research. Speaking about his achievements, Fiona said:
“The IRIS process was the best way to demonstrate that Science belongs to all of us, equally. Seeing Oliver participate in the same collaborative atmosphere as every other science conference was refreshing, and the first time I have seen students present their research in an academic environment.”
Since leaving Alton in the summer, Oliver has continued to explore his love of space by starting a degree in Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology at the University of Portsmouth. Everybody at HSDC wishes him all the best in the future!
