Archive for University College London

Another Edgeworth Connection

Posted in History, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , , , , on November 3, 2024 by telescoper

A week or so ago I posted an item about the Edgeworth family that included a reference to Kenneth Edgeworth, an amateur astronomer of some note who first posited the existence of what is now known as the Kuiper belt. Here’s another interesting connection. Kenneth Edgeworth was born in 1880 in Daramona House in Street in County Westmeath. The owner of this house was Edgeworth’s uncle, another astronomer called William Edward Wilson who built an observatory next to Daramona House.

Here are pictures of (left) house and (right) the observatory, neither of look in particularly good condition!

After independence, many of the large houses owned by the rich Anglo-Irish families who had run Ireland until then fell into disrepair or were destroyed.

Anyway, on top of the two-storey observatory building there used to be a dome that housed a 24″ Grubb reflecting telescope. Here’s an old picture showing what it looked like in better times, around 1900:

The dome is no longer there, and neither is the telescope. The latter was donated to the University of London in 1925 eventually housed in the Observatory at Mill Hill, now run by University College London. Here is an excerpt from the history of the University of London Observatory:

W.E. Wilson established an observatory at Daramona, Street, County Westmeath, in 1871 and equipped it with a 12-inch equatorial reflector by Grubb. Wilson (born in 1851, elected FRS in 1896, an original member of the BAA, awarded an honorary DSc by the University of Dublin in 1901, High Sheriff of Co. Westmeath in 1894), observed the transit of Venus in 1882 and solar eclipses at Oran in 1870 and Spain in 1900, published many papers in Proc. R. Soc, Proc. R. Dublin Soc., Proc. R. Irish Acad., etc., and died in 1908) enlarged his observatory in 1881 and installed a 24-inch reflector by Grubb on the mounting previously used for the 12-inch reflector. Ten years later a new mounting was constructed. It is this mounting which was moved to Mill Hill in 1928. Dr. Wilson used his telescope to make some of the best photographs of his time of star clusters and nebulae, and he worked extensively on problems of solar physics and the solar constant. The telescope may be used in Newtonian and Cassegrain forms; the focal length of the mirror is 10 feet and the equivalent focal length at the Cassegrain focus is approximately 42 feet. The telescope was moved in 1928 from Ireland to University College, where minor modifications were made to the focussing arrangements and plate-holder, and an electric motor was added to rewind the driving clock automatically.

The Wilson telescope was retired from active service in 1974 and moved to the World Museum in Liverpool where, as far as I know, it remains on display to this day.

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The Christopher Backhouse Harassment Case

Posted in Harassment Bullying etc with tags , , , , on October 12, 2022 by telescoper

I hardly know what to say about the harassment case involving Christopher Backhouse, a former researcher at University College London covered in today’s Guardian, except that everyone should be aware of just what a shocking case it is. The opening paragraph of the Guardian story gives a taste:

A former academic at University College London must pay almost £50,000 in damages to a former colleague after falsely portraying her as a sex worker on social media as part of a months-long campaign of harassment.

I don’t know Backhouse personally, but he is (or was) apparently a Royal Society Research Fellow working on the DUNE experiment, an underground neutrino physics experiment.

The whole story is very disturbing, not least because the harassment went on for so long. One strange aspect of this case is that the victim of Backhouse’s campaign of harassment, Erica Smith, had to pursue a civil action against him to put an end to his behaviour. One would have imagined that a criminal case would have been more appropriate. I for one think he should be in prison; the description presented in the Guardian article seems to constitute harassment as defined under the Public Order Act 1986 and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. If such an offence is committed with intent to cause harassment, alarm or distress, the offender can be given 6 months’ imprisonment or a hefty fine. Why has Backhouse not been prosecuted?

The article ends with

A UCL spokesperson said Backhouse was no longer employed by the university.

I’m glad at least of that, but I wonder what UCL did during the “campaign of harassment” carried out by Christopher Backhouse and whether he left voluntarily or was sacked. I wonder what they have done to help Erica Smith put her life back together after this horrific episode. Does UCL have a vicarious liability?

This case on its own raises grave questions about the way harassment cases are handled in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at UCL but this is far from the first such case there that has gone public; see e.g. here.

UCL clearly has a lot of work to do to put its house in order.

In more general terms, I’ll repeat what I have said in earlier posts on this issue:

Failure to act strongly when such behaviour is proven just sends out the message that the institution doesn’t take sexual harassment seriously. In my view, confidentiality is needed during an investigation – to protect both sides and indeed the person doing the investigation – but if the conclusion is that misconduct has taken place, it should be acknowledged publicly. Justice has to be seen to be done. Sexual assault, of course, is another matter entirely – that should go straight to the police to deal with.

I’ve talked about protocols and procedures, but these can only ever apply a sticking-plaster solution to a problem which is extremely deeply rooted in the culture of many science departments and research teams across the world. These tend to be very hierarchical, with power and influence concentrated in the hands of relatively few, usually male, individuals. A complaint about harassment generally has to go up through the management structure and therefore risks being blocked at a number of stages for a number of reasons. This sort of structure reinforces the idea that students and postdocs are at the bottom of the heap and discourages them from even attempting to pursue a case against someone at the top.

We are obviously very far indeed from eliminating harassment or the conditions that allow it to continue but although cases like this are very painful, I think they at least demonstrate that we are beginning to see the extent of the problem, and how the measures taken to deal with it are inadequate. We have to work much harder to stop this sort of thing from happening in the first place.

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Viva Zoom!

Posted in Biographical, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on July 13, 2020 by telescoper

They say that there’s a first time for everything and this morning I conducted my first ever viva voce examination as an External Examiner via Zoom. Given the Covid-19 restrictions it was inevitable that I’d have to do this at some point! As it turned out candidate in question happened to be at University College London.

For those of you not familiar with how this sort of examination usually works, at least in the UK and Ireland, a PhD involves doing research into a particular topic and then writing up what you’ve done in a thesis. The thesis is a substantial piece of work, often in the region of 100,000 words (200 pages or so), which is then assessed by two examiners (one internal to the university at which the research was done, and one external). They read copies of the thesis and write preliminary reports assessing its suitability. Then the candidate has to defend the thesis in an oral examination, which was what happened today, after which the examiners make a final recommendation to the university about whether the degree should be awarded.

There aren’t many rules for how a viva voce examination should be conducted or how long it should last, but the can be as short as, say, 2 hours and can be as long as 5 hours or more. The examiners usually ask a mixture of questions, some about the details of the work presented and some about the general background. The unpredictable content of a viva voce examination makes it very difficult to prepare for, and it can be difficult and stressful for the candidate (as well as just tiring, as it can drag on for a long time). However, call me old-fashioned but I think if you’re going to get to call yourself Doctor of Philosophy you should expect to have to work for it.

As it happens, my own PhD examination (almost 30 years ago!)  was quite long (about 4hrs 30 minutes) and my external examiner was John Peacock. Today’s was a bit shorter – around three hours – and the internal examiner was Andrew Pontzen. Obviously I can’t give details of what went on in the examination except that the internal examiner Andrew Pontzen and I agreed to recommend the award of a PhD to the candidate, Krishna Naidoo. Although it was slightly strange doing this over Zoom instead of in person, it worked out OK. The only thing really missing was a blackboard or whiteboard. I also found it a bit awkward having the PDF thesis and videoconference on the same screen, but that was my fault for not appropriating a spare monitor.

At UCL as in most UK universities, the PhD examiners simply make a recommendation to a higher authority (e.g. Board of Graduate Studies) to formally award the degree, but only in very rare and peculiar circumstances do they not follow the recommendation.

The sad thing about these times of social distancing is that not being there in person I couldn’t shake the hand of the candidate at the end of the examination nor could I join him and his friends and colleagues for a drink afterwards. I’m sure they’ll find a way of celebrating. I couldn’t even join them remotely as I had another Zoom call to make. ..

P.S. If you want an idea of what is in  Krishna’s thesis you could have a look at one of the papers to come from it.

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The Tim Hunt Debacle

Posted in Politics, Science Politics with tags , , , on June 14, 2015 by telescoper

After a whole day off yesterday to recover from an exceptionally busy week I’m back in the office on a Sunday to sort out a few things before leaving tomorrow on a short trip to the Midlands, of which more, perhaps, anon.

In a way I’m quite glad I have been so busy over the last few days, with Exam Boards and the like. Had I had time I might have been tempted to write a post at some point about the Tim Hunt affair which broke on Tuesday. As it turns out, everything moved so quickly that anything I wrote would have been overtaken by events. In any case I didn’t feel that I had much to add to the excellent response written by the Head of the Department of Physics & Astronomy, Prof. Claudia Eberlein, in the Huffington Post on Thursday.  However, now I have a little bit of time I thought I would add a few comments.

I hope it goes without saying that I thought Tim Hunt’s comments about female scientists, made in public at an event in South Korea, were outrageous and indefensible.  My heart sank when I found out what he’d said. I might have believed his story that they were intended to be humorous had it not been for an awful non-apology on Radio 4, which effectively made that line of defence untenable. Nobel Prize winning biochemist he may be, but Tim Hunt clearly has a lot to learn about how to interact with people. When we find ourselves in a hole, most of us have the sense to stop digging.

I know my opinion here differs from that of some of my friends and colleagues, but I also think University College London did the right thing in asking him to resign. I’ve heard it argued that it over the top for him to lose his job over his remarks. But that’s not what happened. In fact, Tim Hunt is in his seventies and has been effectively retired for many years; his position at UCL was honorary (i.e. unpaid). I don’t think the severance of his relationship with UCL can be construed as an excessive punishment. In today’s Observer there’s a piece in which Tim Hunt claims he has been “hung out to dry” . I have to admit that I find his attempt to portray himself as victim to be as nauseating as his earlier apology.  I think UCL were fully justified in severing their relationship with Tim Hunt. This is not an issue of freedom of speech. Tim Hunt had every right to express his opinions. Those opinions are, however, completely incompatible with the values of the institution with which he was associated and his statement of them harmful to the reputation if UCL. He simply had to go.

On the other hand, there’s a lot about this story that troubles me greatly. Although some of the social media reaction to Tim Hunt’s comments was incisively humorous, some was unpleasant and some downright nasty. Worse, the Twitterstorm that raged last week also unleashed the gutter press, chiefly the Daily Mail, whose hacks tried to drag Prof. Mary Collins (Hunt’s wife) into the story. That was unpleasant, even by the standards of the Daily Mail. Mary Collins’ private life has nothing to do with her husband’s failings.

Anyway, I hope that a line will now be drawn under this episode. Tim Hunt should now be left alone to enjoy his retirement. As someone once said of someone else “I’ve nothing against his family, but I’m glad he will be spending more time with them”.

Nobody should be deluded that the departure of one high-profile academic will solve anything.  Tim Hunt was one senior academic stupid enough make offensive comments in public. There are countless others in positions of power and influence who hold very similar opinions but only express them behind closed doors, or under the cover of anonymity. Indeed, I know a number of senior academics who put on a public show of being in favour of equality and diversity but in private have acted deliberately to undermine the careers of, usually junior, female scientists. The culprits aren’t always men, either..

P.S. In the interest of full disclosure I should point that I have never met Tim Hunt so do not know what his views really are. Neither do I have any connection with University College London.

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