Guy Leckenby (2014)
Scholar Profile
Guy Leckenby is a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia where he is currently researching exotic nuclear decay mechanisms at Canada’s particle accelerator centre, TRIUMF. Guy hopes to help explain how the smallest nuclear properties control the astrophysical processes that produced the wide variety of elements that make up our world.
At the ANU, Guy studied the traces of stellar explosions that collect in deep-sea sediments using Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, a technique where physicists use massive accelerators to count long-lived supernova products at a sensitivity of one part in a hundred trillion. At TRIUMF, Guy has shifted to look at rare decay modes that can radically change nuclear properties with profound astrophysical implications. This research is part of the international NUSTAR collaboration based out of the next-generation radioactive beam facility FAIR at the GSI Helmholtz Centre in Darmstadt, Germany.
Guy is also actively learning about modern physics teaching methods, inspired by both ANU and UBC’s commitment to active learning in physics. Outside of physics, Guy is feeling very lucky to be in beautiful British Columbia to indulge his obsession with skiing.
