QUASAR Group welcomes new Research Associate
A warm welcome to Dr Oznur Apsimon who joined the QUASAR Group, in the University of Liverpool, as research coordinator and deputy group leader. Initially involved in a range of projects including AWAKE, betatron radiation generation from under-dense plasma, non-linear optical couplings and their corrections in HL-LHC, dielectric laser acceleration and acceleration in carbon nanotubes. She will be working alongside Professor Carsten Welsch in supervising and mentoring our QUASARs.
Oznur Apsimon studied Physics Engineering at Hacettepe University in Turkey, followed by an MSc in accelerator physics at Ankara University. In parallel of these studies, she also took part in tests and conditioning of radio-frequency accelerating structures (30 GHz) for the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) project at CERN. She obtained her doctoral degree from École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne in 2011.
Her engagement with CERN continued as a research fellow (2011-2013) on halo cleaning using a novel method which included the use of a local orbit bump based, fixed graphite target for CERN's Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) as a part of the LHC quench protection system.
In September 2013, Oznur joined the Cockcroft Institute to work on CERN's unique, proton driven plasma wakefield accelerator project AWAKE. Within the frame of the institute, she was a postdoctoral research associate in the University of Manchester and Lancaster University working on a range of topics including external electron injection and emittance diagnostics for AWAKE; a task which was lead by her from 2017, exploitation of the local facility CLARA for electron driven plasma wakefield acceleration and beam physics aspects of terahertz acceleration. During this time, she specialised on beam physics under RF fields especially for space charge dominated electron beams - and emittance diagnostics in this regime -, beam physics for novel plasma and THz based accelerators as well as their interfacing with conventional accelerators.
Dr Apsimon will be based at the Cockcroft Institute and we are delighted to have her in our group.