Former warehouse man wins top astrophysics prize

1:17pm Tuesday 8th April 2008

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A former warehouseman from Longridge has beaten off competition from hundreds of academic researchers from across the United Kingdom and beyond to win a top prize at the 2008 National Astronomy Meeting.

Jaz Pearson, a mathematics graduate of the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), Preston, and now a research student within UCLan's Centre for Astrophysics, won a top of the range Dell laptop for his research into solar astrophysics.

"I was overwhelmed to win such a prestigious award, particularly in the face of such tough competition," said Jaz.

"The Sun is a fascinating subject, its energy provides for life on Earth but it is also incredibly unpredictable."

Working with his supervisor, Dr Robert Walsh, Jaz has been studying some of the largest eruptions in our solar system.

Coronal mass ejections or solar storms throw out billions of tonnes of electrified gases from the Sun - when these plasma clouds strike the Earth's magnetic field, they create beautiful aurora but also can badly affect radio communication, damage expensive satellites and short-circuit electrical transformers.

Jaz has been working with observations from a new NASA satellite mission called STEREO which is allowing scientists to track these dynamic events like never before.

UCLan's Dr Robert Walsh said: "The research that Jaz has conducted into solar astrophysics was overwhelmingly recognised for the quality of the science as well as its presentation.

"The Sun is our nearest star and the research produced by Jaz is making an important contribution to our understanding of our stellar neighbour."

Jaz came into university life as a mature student, having worked as a warehouseman and in numerous bar jobs.

He found his passion for science having studied for an A level in maths at Blackburn College and then a foundation degree at Preston College, St Vincent's Road in the city, after which he enrolled at UCLan on a mathematics degree.

The UCLan scholar continued: "I never looked back after that and I'm now looking forward to completing my PhD."

The National Astronomy Meeting is an annual event sponsored by the Royal Astronomical Society and the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

This year it was hosted by Queen's University, Belfast and attracted 650 delegates.

In a separate competition at the same event another UCLan research student, Sotiris Adamakis, won a prize for his presentation of the application of statistical techniques to the modelling of solar plasmas.