Petra Fisher, Physics BSc (Hons) student at Otago, is one of four Woolf Fisher Trust scholarship awardees for New Zealand in 2025. The prestigious scholarship will fund Petra’s doctoral research at the University of Cambridge.
Petra’s PhD research in physics will explore astrophysical fluid dynamics associated with the formation and dynamics of galaxies and accretion discs.
Petra has already had a distinguished career at Otago, gaining Beverly Bursaries (2021,2023,2024), and a University of Otago Prestige Scholarship in Science (2023).
Congratulations Petra! We wish you all the best for your doctoral studies, and will be keenly following what you do next.
Petra’s research articles while at Otago:
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad1506
https://doi.org/10.1029/2023SW003731
Woolf Fisher prize in the news
https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroom/sciences-students-receive-woolf-fisher-scholarships
https://auckland.scoop.co.nz/2024/10/2025-woolf-fisher-scholarship-recipients-announced/
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/campus/pair-cambridge-scholarships
Hannah Kessenich
Sir Michael Berry, distinguished British physicist, renowned for his groundbreaking contributions to the field of quantum mechanics and wave phenomena has visited New Zealand as a James and Jean Davis Prestigious Visitor of the University of Otago.
Professor Berry’s work has had profound implications in various disciplines, including optics and condensed matter physics. He is perhaps best known for formulating the Berry phase, a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics that describes how the phase of a quantum state evolves when the system is adiabatically transported around a closed path in parameter space. This concept has not only enriched theoretical physics but has also found applications in areas such as molecular dynamics, quantum computing, and materials science.
