School years were not the best
As a recent university graduate, the memories of job fairs are way too vivid in my mind. They brought back a flood of flashbacks to those miserable school mornings when the last thing I wanted to do was get out of bed and face another dreadful day. Out of sheer defiance, I went on to university to study quite a difficult subject – physics. Ironically, that spite must have been a great motivator, because I ended up doing really well—well enough to be offered an astronomy PhD at Durham University.
I love my PhD
This has been incredibly fun; after my dreadful school years, I never thought I would want to wake up in the morning and go to work. Back then, my parents used to say, ‘Just wait until you have to go to work. *that’s* dreadful’. Perhaps they were right… but so far, my PhD seems to be a cheat code for that. I still look forward to the mornings.
NAM in Durham
After getting my PhD offer, my colleagues from my undergraduate degree really hyped up NAM for me, telling me in secrecy that it was going to be in Durham! That made my transition into PhD even more exciting. The sheer amount of work that I’ve seen almost everyone put into it has been incredibly inspirational. As a researcher that’s a little more grown now, I also really appreciate the collaboration part of NAM; it is one of my favourite things to be able to discuss research with other people. Taking part in NAM is what being a researcher is all about to me and I can’t wait to connect with other researchers in astronomy!
What does a PhD student do?
As a first-year PhD student, I attend group meetings, journal clubs, lectures and listen to seminars and FLATS (Friday lunchtime talks) and read papers and present papers and maybe write papers and do a lot of coding and then googling why my code doesn’t work and then coding it in a different way. And it is so, so much fun. I often think back to those dull job fairs and feel I made the right decision by steering away.
Durham is also full of opportunities, which I really enjoy. I am heavily involved with my college life by attending many clubs and societies and volunteering. There is also plenty of outreach to do, like the Planetarium or Celebrate Science events, and I even got to do some of the outreach in my native language (an interview about my research in Polish!!!).
Explaining my research
Last Easter break, my family made the mistake of asking me to explain my research. So, confident with my Planetarium outreach skills, I pulled out my laptop, an HDMI cable, and a delirious dream, and talked at them for an hour, showing my plots and graphs on the big TV in the living room. Thankfully, I work on galaxies, meaning I could stick a pretty photo (cover photo, thanks for existing, NGC1300!) every now and then if I felt like I was losing my audience too much. I am focused on galaxy dynamics in particular; I am working on a method to estimate dark matter content using stellar bars in galaxies (long elongated structures full of stars and gas right at galaxy centres). This work will hopefully allow us to understand how much dark matter galaxies have, since we still have no idea!
Discover more
Read more about what’s happening in Durham for NAM 2025
Take a look at the events happening at NAM 2025
Discover more about Physics and Mathematical Sciences at Durham University, including how to study with us.
Explore Durham University’s astronomical research.
