Farah

Farah joined STFC Technology after graduating in Information Technology and Telecommunications followed by research Masters in Analogue ASIC Design from University of Limerick.

We are continuously given opportunities to develop and learn both technical and non-technical skills. As a part of my formal training I have attended a 'Low Voltage Low Power Analogue ASIC Design' course in California.

STFC has Science and Engineering Ambassadors (SEA), who help inspire school pupils and the public with science and engineering that takes place here. I am an Active SEA having helped at various primary school workshops and the county science fair organized here.

The New Scientist Forum (NSF) supports all new recruits at STFC by giving a friendly social introduction to the organisation, its work and people. It aims to provide a great opportunity to meet other newcomers, share lunch, make presentations on your own area of expertise and attend informal training sessions. For the last 6 months I have been the training coordinator for the NSF, organising a range of sessions from basic HTML to 'Developing the Winning Edge'.

I have just finished work on a project called FREDA, developing an analogue front-end ASIC for gas micro strip detectors. The FREDA v1.1 ASIC consisted of 16 channels, each having preamplifier, band pass filter and output buffer amplifiers. I completed this design and submitted it for manufacture in Dec 2005, with a lot of guidance from my project manager throughout the project. It was very exciting to see my first ASIC working successfully. I have since developed the design further to include programmable filter and gain settings. This version is currently in manufacture.

My next project is to develop an ASIC for the Solar Intensity X-ray and particle Spectrometer (SIXS) instrument that will be used on the ESA Bepi Colombo mission to Mercury. I am keen to get started on this challenging project with collaborators from Finland, UK and ESA.

In a short time at STFC I have gained experience, training, friends and a great work-life balance.