ORC research fellow presents to Parliament

Dr Amol Choudhary, 27, a research fellow at the University of Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Centre, hailing from New Delhi, India, has attended Parliament to present his engineering research to a range of politicians and a panel of expert judges, as part of SET for Britain, held on Monday 17 March.

Amol’s poster presents his research into developing miniature laser sources that generate more than a billion pulses of light per second: each pulse lasts less than a trillionth of a second. These laser sources can have applications in medicine, telecommunications, astronomy and in frequency standards. Amol’s work will be judged against dozens of other engineers’ research in the only national competition of its kind.

Amol was shortlisted from hundreds of applicants to appear in Parliament. He received his BEng degree from the Delhi College of Engineering, MSc from the University of St. Andrews and recently completed his PhD studies at Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Centre.

On presenting his research in Parliament, he said, “This is a very exciting opportunity for me to present my research to representatives from the government and to the scientific policy makers.â€?

Andrew Miller MP, Chairman of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, said, “This annual competition is an important date in the parliamentary calendar because it gives MPs an opportunity to speak to a wide range of the country’s best young researchers.

“These early career engineers, mathematicians and scientists are the architects of our future and SET for Britain is politicians’ best opportunity to meet them and understand their work.â€?

Amol’s research has been entered into the Engineering session of the competition, which will end in a gold, silver and bronze prize-giving ceremony. Judged by leading academics, the gold medalist receives £3,000, while silver and bronze receive £2,000 and £1,000 respectively.

Volker Schultz, Chief Executive Officer, Essar Oil UK commented: “Essar Oil UK are delighted to be gold sponsors of the Engineering Section of SET for Britain 2014. The awards help to encourage and support young scientists, engineers and technologists, with the standard of entrants consistently impressive year after year. As a company that employs so many talented people across these different disciplines we take a tremendous interest in the excellent work the competition is promoting.â€?

Mr Philip Greenish CBE, Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering said: “SET for Britain is a unique occasion for young researchers to showcase the best of their work directly to MPs.

“It gathers some of Britain’s best early-stage researchers and politicians in the same room, this helps to create familiarity and a dialogue between two worlds that have very few occasions to touch.â€?

The Parliamentary and Scientific Committee run the event in collaboration with the Council for Mathematical Sciences, the Institute of Physics, The Physiological Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Society of Biology and the Society of Chemical Industry, with financial support from BP, the Clay Mathematics Institute, Essar, INEOS, Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), Germains Seed Technology, Boeing, the Bank of England and the Institute of Biomedical Science.