Scientist returns to Loreto with stories from CERN
When one of human history's most ambitious science projects reaches its climax next year, a former student of Loreto College, Mullingar will be at the centre of it.As part of her PhD research at the University of Glasgow, Kate Doonan, who sat her Leaving Cert at Loreto in 2006, will spend next year working at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, or CERN, the organisation that operates the world's largest particle physics laboratory.When Kate arrives at CERN next March, the largest particle collisions at the Large Hadron Collider will, for scientists like Kate, paint a clearer picture in the search for the Higgs boson, the hypothesised 'God particle' which, it is hoped, will explain how particles gain mass.The Higgs boson is the subject of Kate's PhD thesis at the University of Glasgow, and for that reason, she will be spending next year at the Swiss underground facility.Kate visited her alma matter, Loreto College last Friday, to talk to the fifth and sixth year physics students and their teachers about the possibility of careers in the discipline, and to offer an exciting insight into university life abroad.She first arrived in Mullingar as a student in 2004, living with her sister, Deirdre, who is married to Enda Feeney, who teaches physics at St Finian's College."I finished my Leaving Cert here in 2006," Kate told the Westmeath Examiner, "and I remember writing in the Loreto Link magazine at the time that I wanted to work for NASA or CERN."Six years later, it's a dream to be heading there."After finishing in Loreto, Kate went to Glasgow, where she completed a Master's degree in theoretical physics, before starting her doctorate.Originally, music was the be all and end all for her (she once won an organ scholarship to the Schola Cantorum at St Finian's College), but she decided to concentrate on science and maths instead."It's great that there's so much encouragement these days for girls to get into science, and especially that applied maths is being introduced here at Loreto," she said.Kate has her head firmly screwed on. She's not caught up in all the doomsday talk surrounding the Large Hadron Collider, trusting that science has everything under control.Likewise, she wouldn't approve of the Higgs boson being termed the 'God particle'."There's plenty of room for God," Kate insists, answering one of the many intelligent questions posed by the Loreto students."Even the Big Bang isn't necessarily the bottom line. You have to keep an open mind, because it's plausible that there's something else at work behind everything."