Eleanor Lawrence Bright / Scientist on actinide materials

"I completed my PhD at the University of Bristol, studying the properties of Uranium nitride, a fundamentally interesting material and a promising alternative to Uranium dioxide for use as nuclear fuel. I used several synchrotron sources to do experiments and really liked the idea of one day working in a synchrotron because of the variety of the job. I was especially attracted to the ESRF, because of its position as leader with the Extremely Brilliant Source.

The same day I defended my thesis, the ESRF published a position for a post-doctoral fellow in my field. The rest is history! I spent my post-doc years on ID11. During that time, I developed many skills including programming, gaining a good understanding of the details and how a beamline works and softer skills, like managing and driving my own research projects. I was able to work with lots of different user groups and to experience their different approaches to experiments. The exposure to the various jobs and specialities needed to make a well-functioning beamline and the wide range of user experiments that I worked on helped me determine the next career step I wanted to take.

In February 2024, I was offered a scientist position on BM20, which is run by Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden Rossendorf. This beamline mainly explores radioactive materials using diffraction and a wide range of other techniques. Many of the experiments are on actinides materials, which I find very engaging and relevant to my own studies."

Top image: Eleanor Lawrence Bright at the ESRF, near BM20.