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Christian Killow

    • About Me:

      Hello,

      I live in north Wales with my wife, son and dog.  I work as an engineer designing night vision optics where I use my experiences as a research physicist from my previous job.

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      I have traveled far and wide – I have lived in Belfast, Adelaide and Glasgow… and ended up living in the town I went to school in!  I enjoy spending time with my family, especially taking my eight year old son to play rugby.

    • My pronouns are:

      he/him

    • My Work:

      I work on night vision optics, especially on getting new technologies into our products to make them more competitive.

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      I work on both thermal imaging devices (that use heat to see) and low light devices (think of the green images you see in movies when people use night vision devices).  My work is very varied and involves aspects of optics, mechanics, electronics – anything that ends with “ics”!

    • My Typical Day:

      I drag myself out of bed and rush around to start work at 8:15am.  I spend around half of my time at my computer and half in the lab.  Computer work involves writing reports, sendind emails, joining meetings and so on.  Lab work can be anything from fixing products to being out on trials to test equipment.

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      I am a development engineer and my primary task is to develop new products that will be of interest to our customers.  We want our products to be the best in the world but we also need to keep the cost as low as possible, so we need to be clever about how we design them.

    • What I'd do with the prize money:

      I would use the money to build cool demonstrations that could be used to demonstrate STEM principles to school students.

    My CV

    • Education:

      I went to school in Ruthin, north Wales where I did my GCSEs and A-levels.  I then went to Queens’ University Belfast where I did my BSc and MSc, and I ended up at the University of Glasgow where I was awarded my doctorate.

    • Qualifications:

      I have 10 GCSEs, 3 A-levels (maths, physics, chemistry), BSc in physics with astrophysics, MSc in optoelectronics and a PhD in interferometry for spaceborne gravitational wave detectors.

    • Work History:

      My first paid employment was as a farm hand while I was at school, this was hard work but I enjoyed it and gave me some money for my hobbies.

      I worked at Adelaide University for a couple of years as a physics researcher which I really enjoyed.  So much so that I cam back to the UK to do a PhD at the University of Glasgow.

      After my PhD I stayed in Glasgow as a Research Associate, gradually getting to Research Fellow level.  For a couple of years I did this part time as well as being Graduate School Coordinator for the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance.

      4.5 years ago I moved out of academia into industry.  I am now a Senior Development Engineer at Qioptiq in north Wales.

    • Employer:

      Qioptiq (an Excelitas company).

    • My Interview

      • What did you want to be after you left school?

        I didn't want to be anything specific, I just wanted to be doing something that interested me!

        Were you ever in trouble at school?

        Not really. Not the way I remember it anyway.

        If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?

        A university physics lecturer, which I nearly was.

        Who is your favourite singer or band?

        Not sure I really have a favourite, I enjoy lots of kinds of music.

        What's your favourite food?

        Lamb roast dinner.

        If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!

        Health, happiness and more time.

        Tell us a joke.

        What's brown and sticky? [A stick. Of course.]

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