Dr. Harrington’s Work

Throughout this project I’ve had the opportunity to meet a number of researchers working at the Centre for Photonics and Photonics Materials at the University of Bath.

Each has their own unique area of study and benefits from a 40 strong team to share knowledge and overcome barriers. I sat down with Dr. Kerrianne Harrington, a Research Associate at the Centre, and the driving force behind our ambitious public engagement process.

Harrington is part of the interdisciplinary project u-Care, who are exploiting cutting edge techniques in laser physics to develop new sources of deep UV light.

To say that Harrington is working on ‘medical devices’ would be an understatement, one of the goals of u-Care is to develop new ways to precicely deliver light for new light therapies targeting some of the biggest challenges facing medicine, cellular-precision cancer surgery, and tackling the emergence of drug-resistant “super-bugs.”

u-Care is a multidisciplinary project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

One of Harrington’s fibres

Harrington’s previous work as a Post-doctoral Researcher at the University focused on Nanophotonics, the study of light on the Nanometer scale. She built optical experiments to investigate and explore nano and microstructures, imaging how these structures interact with light.

For her PhD she fabricated novel optical fibres for biomedical applications under the guidance of Professor Tim Birks and Stephanos Yerolatsitis. Much of her work involved post-processing optical fibre, accessing the optical fibre tower featured in our engagement project .