Rebecca Newland Astronautics PhD

Hi, I'm Rebecca Newland and I studied Astronautics PhD within Engineering and the Environment at the University of Southampton.

The PhD is well structured and you are supported from the beginning to reach milestones that guide your progress along the way.

I studied at Southampton as an undergraduate but I moved from physics to engineering because the 'with space science' part of my degree really interested me. After a summer work placement here I knew that I wanted to continue working with space debris environment models. The PhD is well structured and you are supported from the beginning to reach milestones that guide your progress along the way. In a normal week, I vary my workload so that I cover a range of tasks, including finding and reading scientific literature, learning to use software, brainstorming ideas and discussing my work with my supervisors.

There are lots of opportunities to take part in extra training courses and go to lectures and seminars of interest. I am starting my nine-month report soon and after I have handed it in I am going to a conference, followed by a summer school to improve my knowledge of a specific topic that I am researching. We are expected to work hard and there are some difficult times, but sticking to set hours means that I can pursue my hobbies including learning a language at evening classes.

About Rebecca

When interviewed, Rebecca was in her first year of a PhD in astronautics after graduating in Physics with Space Science. She is looking at how to model the space debris environment around Earth and is using new techniques which include researching topics such as network theory and complexity science. Rebecca is funded by Engineering and the Environment and the EPSRC.