About Me

My name is Ying Li but everyone calls me Lia. I wish this had something to do with Princess Leia but unfortunately Star Wars came into my circle of influence post-teenage years. And now it's too late to add an 'e' to an already complicated name situation.

I've managed to experience some random things in my short life so far, which is reflected in my hodgepodge of a CV. But if you want to find out the juicy bits just get me a shot of Bison grass vodka and I'll start telling stories of kissing Brian May live on radio during an interview, making £900 from organising a two day gig at the age of 14 and submitting a proposal to the MoD for an invention to make people crap themselves.

I love science, the more physic-sy the better, and if it involves a LASER I'm as giddy as a Justin Bieber fan. I received a first class MSci degree in Physics from Imperial College, specialising in making Diode Pumped Solid State LASERs which I enjoyed so much I stayed an extra 3 months after finals to continue within the Non-linear Optics Group.

I have just started a PhD at UCL in Optomechanics which basically involves shining LASERs onto tiny objects and revealing their quantum nature. We levitate and cool them into being weird. I used to work within the R&D sector for industry too. I try and take part in exciting science projects such as The Quantum Workshop and also experiment in Science Communication.

The Kitty Lab is my online portfolio for the articles I write which are science related. 

I also have another blog called The Kitty Post which is a glorified scratch pad for most of the things you'll see here. It also acts as a deathbed for non science topics and perhaps contains some crass and profane ramblings. It's the party end of the mullet. I write under the nom de plume of Lia Han for anything that's not serious serious. Then I don't get in trouble.