Charlie House, PhD student at the University of Southampton’s Institute for Sound and Vibration Research, has been presented with our annual award for an outstanding research project. Charlie was competing with three other students funded under the Industrial Cooperative Awards in Science and Technology (ICASE) scheme.
When sound waves hit an object, they bounce back in a different direction - just like echoes in a cave. Underwater, these bouncing sound waves can exacerbate marine noise created by ships, potentially affecting marine wildlife. Charlie’s research looked into how to stop an object from reflecting sound, which could be used to significantly reduce underwater noise.
Dave Short, BAE Systems Technology Director said: “We work closely with the country’s best universities, funding and mentoring students in research at the very cutting edge of technology. As well as helping give the UK’s Armed Forces a competitive edge, much of this research has applications in the commercial sector - Charlie’s excellent acoustic research could help reduce the impact of ship noise on marine life. I congratulate him on winning.”
BAE Systems also gives students valuable experience of putting their research into practice. Charlie explains what this meant to him:
“The support we get from BAE Systems has been invaluable. We each have a mentor who has practical experience of applying new technology in real world scenarios, so they make sure the research stays on track and is relevant to the problem we are trying to solve.
We work closely with the country’s best universities, funding and mentoring students in research at the very cutting edge of technology. As well as helping give the UK’s Armed Forces a competitive edge, much of this research also has applications in the commercial sector - Charlie’s excellent acoustic research could for example help to reduce the impact of ship noise on marine life. I congratulate him on some fantastic research and a well-deserved win Dave Short, BAE Systems Technology Director
“BAE Systems has also given me other opportunities, from giving me access to full-scale ships to test my research, to inviting me to STEM events to help inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.”
Charlie’s mentor at BAE Systems, Andy Monks, said: “Charlie has brought huge enthusiasm to the team and helped us look at familiar problems in novel ways. This is the real value of funding PhD students to join the team - they get the benefit of applying their research to real world problems while we often get a completely new approach to areas we’ve been looking at for a while.”
Choosing this year’s winner was a very difficult choice, as three other highly talented ICASE students were also competing. These were:
- Josh Parkin - The University of Manchester - Development of Multi-Functional Graphene Composites for Aerospace Structures
- James Norris - Cranfield University - Investigating the fundamental underlying principles of guided small calibre projectiles
- Anastasios Christodoulides - University of Birmingham - Adaptive Multiband Metamaterials for Structural, Air Vehicle, Antennas
ICASE projects are run by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), which is the main funding body for engineering and physical sciences research in the UK. BAE Systems provides funding for several ICASE projects each year.
