Question: Have you always wanted to work with gamma rays?

Rowena Fletcher-Wood answered on 8 Mar 2014:

No – actually, working with gamma rays was a complete accident and was never supposed to be part of my PhD. In science, we don’t always have access to all the equipment we want, so we have to share with friends and colleagues at other universities. I wanted to use a piece of equipment called an x-ray photoelectron spectrometer, but we didn’t have one. My supervisor thought a Mossbauer spectrometer would give me the same results (it’s better), so put me in touch with someone who had one. It wasn’t until I visited for a chat that I learnt how the equipment worked using gamma rays.