Mia Au is from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She completed a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering at the University of Alberta, during which she worked as an undergrad at TRIUMF in Vancouver and entered the world of physics research. Mia researched isotope production targets during her master’s at the University of British Columbia with the IsoSiM (http://www.isosim.ubc.ca/) program. She worked in engineering developments for the ARIEL project at TRIUMF, defect behaviour and electrochemical transport properties in anti-fluorite structured materials at MPI in Stuttgart, Germany, and thermal properties of target materials before chasing her interests further into a PhD.
In the LISA program, Mia found an ideal balance between engineering and physics. She looks forward to the challenge of producing and delivering actinides, and hopes that her work with molecular beams and target developments will provide opportunities for new discoveries with the actinide elements.
In her free time, Mia enjoys physical activity and spending time in the outdoors. She looks forward to exploring the Swiss and French Alps and eating significant amounts of chocolate.
Study and optimize the reaction conditions required to create volatile molecular species of refractory elements in general and actinides in particular. Develop a dissociation scheme for the provision of atomic species suitable for efficient laser ionization or in-source laser spectroscopy.
Extraction of radiogenic actinide elements from an ISOL target and delivered in atomic form to the users. Determine the production yield and purity of the beams and report the new beam availability to the community.
This Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) Innovative Training Networks (ITN) receives funding from the European Union’s H2020 Framework Programme under grant agreement no. 861198