In the Dark

After a week away in Cork, I’m back in the office at Maynooth University. I have quite a lot of things to do before my next trip away which will be next week.

On Friday (27th) Maynooth students got their examination results. For this year’s finalists that means they also received news of their final degree classification. I’ve seen quite a few celebratory messages flying around on social media so let me add my own congratulations here: Congratulations!

We’ve had an outstanding group of students in Theoretical Physics this year and that is reflected in some excellent degree results. Well done to them all, and best wishes for the further studies on which many of them are about to embark.

Tomorrow (Tuesday 1st July), we have a consultation day during which students can ask about their examinations and request advice on next steps, including repeat examinations in August, the papers for which have to be readied for printing in the next two weeks.

Campus is quiet at this time of year, as most of the undergraduate students have left for the summer (or permanently for the graduands). A few will remain to do summer projects. The postgraduates are still around, of course. I have a Masters student doing their project this summer, from which I hope a paper will emerge, and a PhD student doing post-viva corrections to her thesis. I’ve also got a couple of other papers to finish.

I’m hearing a lot about sweltering temperatures across Europe. Fortunately it is more temperate here in Ireland, with maximum of 23 degrees forecast in Maynooth. All of this reminds me that it was a year ago today that I returned from a spell in Barcelona on sabbatical. As it happens, I met my hosts Licia and Raul at EAS last week. It seems things are going well at ICCUB. I would have stayed longer there, but my laptop had died which left me unable to work effectively. I’m looking forward to visiting there again next year for the 2026 Euclid Consortium meeting (if I can find the time).

This entry was posted on June 30, 2025 at 10:06 am and is filed under Barcelona, Biographical, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.