‘Images of Research’ is an innovative way for Early Career Researcher staff to highlight the wide range of research that is taking place at the University of Exeter and an opportunity to look at research in a new and exciting way.
There are two main aims of the competition:
l To engage the public in academic research, particularly the breadth of research taking place at the University of Exeter.
l To provide an opportunity for researchers to communicate often complex research to non-specialists.
Scan the QR code to watch Prof Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova, Vice President and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research and Impact), explain more about the competition and the benefits it brings to our Early Career Researchers.
Josh at Stockwell Skatepark
Paul O’Connor
Josh started skateboarding 7 years ago at the age of 50. You might ask why? Like many others he was inspired by his children and the fun they were having. He found not just an exciting activity but also a vibrant creative community which he threw himself into. He has subsequently helped build DIY skateparks, volunteered for a skateboard NGO in Palestine, founded a skateboard publication company, and written a book. He is depicted skating in the August sun at a skatepark in Brixton that was built in 1978. This was during a weekend event celebrating the early pioneers of British skateboarding. My research looks at older skateboarders across the UK and listens to their stories and connects to the communities they are imbedded within. 3RD
Biomimicry Brilliance: Solar Photovoltaics Wings
Anurag Roy
The optical strategies found in butterfly wings can be adopted for solar photovoltaics, particularly concentrated photovoltaics (CPV). In CPV science, solar cells are now manufactured in sub-millimeter sizes, especially advanced cells like perovskites, which are expensive and challenging to produce in large quantities. We have combined these small cells with concentrator optics to reduce costs and enhance the system’s design and aesthetics. The temperaturedependent expansion and contraction of butterfly wings
can also be related to PV performance. By mimicking the nanostructures of butterfly wings, these concentrating mechanisms can be seamlessly integrated into flat planes of material. In this picture, we discovered a butterfly on a bright summer day near a solar cell. The butterfly, unaware of our presence, doesn’t realise that as solar scientists, we are leveraging the natural design of its wings. Mimicking the light propagation and optical functions of butterfly wings can enhance CPV technology and boost solar power.
Linguistic Landscape in Truro
Kensa Broadhurst
The image shows an entrance to the Hall for Cornwall, Truro’s theatre. On the glass door, information is given in both English and Cornish. It is in the same font and size as the English, although it is placed underneath. The street behind the theatre is also reflected in the door. Here, we see Cornish being placed in the heart of Truro. My research concerns the Linguistic Landscape (LL) in particular areas of Cornwall. LL is a subfield of sociolinguistics concerning which languages are displayed in the public domain and who they are targeting. What does the LL tell us about both places and people which use them? Alongside my colleague Katy Humberstone, I am looking for where Cornish is being used alongside English and what that tells us about Cornish language use in the 21st century.
Circus Science by the Sea
Lizzie Hobson
It is well recognised that the oil and gas grab in the Ionian sea is causing environmental harm. At stake is an unusually endangered zone. The Hellenic trench is one of the world’s most significant marine mammal areas. Campaigns to stop hyrdocarbon drilling are rife on the Ionian islands, including activists using circus as a tool to encourage climate action. In this image, local circus artist
and dancer Mariana Vout is conducting a site-specific performance on Polis beach on the Ionian island of Ithaka with the goal to encourage her audience to learn about climate change, sustainability, arts activism and explore artistic methods (circus, movement and dance) in expressing their concerns and issues that they feel strongly about.
One Shape does not Rule them all
Darren Thomson
Lung cells protect us from killer pathogens, such as fungi. Here is a montage of one lung cell type exhibiting various shapes during an infection. Each image was captured at a different time point of infection with a fungal pathogen (Aspergillus fumigatus; yellow arrows). Throughout infection, cells occupy different shapes (black arrows) to perform their function, such as adhesion, migration, secretion, cell division, or death. We can tell a lot about cell function and health based on their shape, captured under
the microscope. Special tuning of the microscope’s optics allowed us to see inside the cell and track their structural changes carefully without painting the cells with harmful dyes.
Simply put, cells are very dynamic! You can’t rely on a single snap-shot and must watch them over time to understand them fully.
The Real Guardians of Arrakis
Adam Porter
As part of the Convex Seascape Survey, we’re studying how seafloor mud-dwelling animals help move carbon around and keep the ecosystem healthy. The seafloor is a crucial carbon store, vital in the fight against climate change and the animals living in this mud constantly mix (bioturbate) it, redistributing nutrients and carbon. In fact, they mix a volume equivalent to 12 times Mount
Everest every day. Our experiments involve placing a layer of fluorescent sand on the mud and observing how the animals mix it. This helps us identify which species are most effective at burying carbon and this will help us identify areas of the seabed and ecosystems that are our allies in the pursuit of a net-zero world.
Blueberries for Osteoarthritis
Lauren Struszczak
Osteoarthritis is an inflammatory, painful joint condition which leads to poorer physical function and quality of life. There are no treatments to prevent osteoarthritis and most patients eventually need invasive joint replacement surgery. Blueberries are rich in natural chemicals that have anti-inflammatory effects. There is some evidence that blueberries improve osteoarthritis symptoms. This picture shows a knee joint that has had a knee replacement, sat on a bed of blueberries. In our research we are asking
1ST
osteoarthritis patients who are due to have their knees replaced, to take a blueberry supplement before and after their knee replacement surgery. We will investigate whether the blueberry supplement changes markers of inflammation, pain and function within the knee joint. This study may tell us whether eating more fruits like blueberries, might prevent or slow down joint damage in osteoarthritis and perhaps delay the need for others to have their knees replaced.
Building Babies Brains
Kath Wilkinson
This photograph demonstrates the importance of shared parent-child experiences in the first few years of a child’s life, even before children can verbally communicate. These experiences along with the quality of the parent-child relationship have been shown to have a lasting impact on children’s social, emotional and cognitive development.
Reduced budgets have meant that services are unable to offer parenting support that is accessible and appropriate for all parents, despite evidence of its beneficial impact.
We worked with the charity, Action for Children, to explore how volunteer community ‘champions’ can share evidence-based messages with parents to improve knowledge and understanding of child development and behaviour, and the essential role that parents play in their child’s development.
Our research helps us to understand the impact that community champions can have on families and how communities can work together with services to support all parents in their caregiving role.
Bringing a Bronze Age Woman Back to Life with AI
Emily Hauser
As part of my research into the lives of real women of the Late Bronze Age in Greece, I teamed up with a digital AI facial reconstruction specialist to generate an AI-created image of a Mycenaean woman from the Late Bronze Age, who was buried in the royal cemetery at Mycenae over three and a half thousand years ago. This is the first time
that we have been able to look into the eyes of this woman –who, we know from analysis of her bones, died at the age of 34 – in the three and a half millennia since she was buried: bringing her to life in vivid three-dimensional colour with the most recent digital technology.
Inclusion on the Path to Destruction is no Solution
Rebecca Yeo
Disabled people worked together with artist Andrew Bolton to create a mural conveying people’s key messages about the climate crisis.
The mural shows a rainbow that gradually loses its colours. Below a grey rainbow, black and white Monopoly figures are running with their money bags to escape planet earth in an inaccessible rocket. Two disabled people are trying, but failing, to keep up.
Meanwhile, disabled people and allies are helping each other move in the opposite direction to build alternatives under the colourful rainbow.
The mural portrays how the climate crisis cannot be addressed by including disabled people on the path to catastrophe. Instead, disabled people are leading the way to create a sustainable future of justice and care for each other and the planet.
The mural is sited on Easton Community Centre in Bristol. It promotes the research to a large public audience and enables ownership for all involved.
Beam Me Up: Solving Problems with Laser Beams
Wagner Buono
Imagine a world where light transmits information at lightning-fast speeds – it’s how we communicate with satellites daily! As we discover new ways to encode information in light, data transmission speeds skyrocket to mind-blowing petabytes per second.
But why stop at just transmitting information? Current computers process data using electrons, generating heat and lacking efficiency. What if we could harness light to process information too?
In our groundbreaking project, we use cutting-edge nonlinear materials that allow light to interact with itself. One light beam controlling another – it’s like magic! This interaction makes these materials perfect for performing complex mathematical operations with light, controlled by light.
Our vision is to create a system where we encode a problem onto a laser beam. This beam then dances through the nonlinear material, interacts with data on another beam, and out comes a different light beam carrying the solution – all at the speed of light!
Rings of Time - Evolution of a Cassiterite from South Crofty Mine, Cornwall
Kiara Brooksby
Cathode luminescence is a microphotography technique that highlights the growth evolution in minerals. Here, we use it to examine cassiterite minerals from South Crofty Mine, Cornwall, to gain a better understanding of how the ore deposits formed. Each individual line represents a period of growth, or in some cases, a period of dissolution. When combined with other techniques and larger-scale processes, this method reveals that the deposit formed through multiple fluid events.
Gristleball
Laura Sinclair
This photograph shows a sphere of cartilage cells grown in our lab. The cells are stained for a biomarker of cellular ageing in red and for their control centre nucleus in blue, and are imaged using a fluorescence microscope. We developed this 3D cell model to be completely free of animal-derived biomaterial to improve how relevant any future experiments’ results are to human medicine.
We research ageing because the cellular processes that underpin ageing also underpin many age-related diseases, e.g. osteoarthritis, neurodegenerative disease and cardiovascular disease. We are growing cartilage in the lab so that we can test if any drugs reduce the “age” of the cells. This research could be useful particularly in the context of bone health as people age.
Camelids and Satellites
Adrián Oyaneder
In some of the world’s most arid regions, humans have independently developed similar ecological and cultural adaptations to address environmental challenges. An example is the use of desert kites, first found in Africa and Asia to collectively capture animals like gazelles, now documented in the Andes of South America. These funnel-shaped structures, known locally as chacu, were designed to capture vicuñas, a wild camelid related to the alpaca, coveted for having the finest fleece in the world. Historically, only five such traps were known in
the Andes. However, since 2018, a long-term satellite imagery project I lead has revealed so far over 200 across a 2,500 km² area in northernmost Chile.
This oblique aerial photograph, taken by drone, shows a rare double funnel trap at 3,600 meters above sea level. The steep drop of about 2.5 meters between the arms and the circular structures highlights their function as a trap.
Uncovering the Glacier’s Buried Secrets
Jo Wood
On the rugged slopes of the French Alps, a ground penetrating radar is carefully deployed to peer beneath layers of debris left by the retreating glaciers. Amongst car-sized boulders and rubble, the search focuses on uncovering remnants of hidden ice, buried beneath rock and debris. The snow-capped peaks and vast glacier in the distance serve as a reminder of the scale of what’s at stake. This work aims to reveal the glacier’s buried secrets, offering crucial insights into the extent of ice hidden under the debris. By discovering hidden ice, researchers hope to better understand how glacier retreat affects water resources, natural hazards, and the environment, and to assess the accuracy of current ice loss estimates, contributing to a better understanding of climate change impacts.
Nature-based Solutions within the English Countryside
Kirsty Frith
This captures University of Exeter (UoE) research monitoring river restoration and nature recovery projects by the National Trust. There has been a move to use naturebased solutions (NbS) for waterway management and restoration, instead of heavily engineered infrastructure. These approaches, working with natural processes, may provide cost-effective, multi-benefit solutions to flooding and drought by storing and slowing water, maintaining base flows, and creating wetland habitats for biodiversity. This picture shows two NbS methods in an agriculturally
dominated landscape under National Trust management on a river in Somerset. The more obvious is the first stage zero restoration project (bottom right) in England. Less apparent is a beaver enclosure within a woodland in the middle of the photograph. UoE and the National Trust are researching both solutions using drone surveys and hydrological monitoring to investigate their impact on catchment structure and potential to reduce downstream flood risk while enhancing biodiversity.
HiFi Clouds over Devon
Dimitar Vlaykov
Rain! Clouds! Sunshine! Showers! Weather predictions have guided us from the dawn of civilisation — from choosing when to sow and harvest, to deciding whether to go out for a picnic or where to build a wind farm. Using advanced computer models we can do a lot better than “interpreting the will of the gods”, but we still have a way to go before hitting the mark — being able to tell whether it will shower over Exeter during the game next Saturday :).
The HiFi project aims to advance our understanding of how small and large weather formations interact to cause extreme and localised events, like storms … or showers. We develop cutting-edge numerical models and integrate them with Met Office software to improve its predictions. The image shows a field of cumulus clouds over Devon. The overlayed grey contours are the results from a computer simulation using one such model.
Single Pixel Terahertz Imaging for Biological Applications
Sonal Saxena
In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in biomedical applications of THz radiation owing to the nonionising nature of the radiation and the sensitivity to differences in tissue water content. However, THz imaging suffers from low resolution because of the long wavelengths. We implement sub-wavelength resolution, single-pixel imaging by projecting time-varying intense optical patterns that spatially modulate the reflection of THz to the detector. Evanescent waves interact with the object placed on top of the modulator. Knowledge of patterns and corresponding detector signal give an image of the object. With such imaging techniques, THz radiation may form the basis of future diagnoses and early-stage detection approaches for diseases such as cancer by exploiting the established correlation between variations in tissue water content and several pathological conditions.
