Helen Czerski: Bubbles

Helen Czerski was born November 01, 1978, raised in Altrincham, Greater Manchester, England, and educated at Altrincham Grammar School for Girls. She graduated from the University of Cambridge as a Churchill College, Cambridge student.

Her degrees include a Master of Arts and Master of Science in Natural Sciences (Physics) and a Ph.D. in experimental explosives physics, particularly Research Department Explosive (RDX)^[1]. She is a Research Fellow in the mechanical engineering department at University College London.

Helen’s research addresses the physics of breaking waves and bubbles at the ocean surface. These bubbles are an important component of the boundary between the ocean and the atmosphere, and the ultimate aim of these studies is to improve climate models as well as a fundamental understanding of how the ocean works.

Subsurface bubbles change underwater sound and light, help transfer gases from the ocean to the atmosphere (helping the ocean breathe), and also eject ocean material into the air. She has spent months working on research ships in the Antarctic, the Pacific, the North Atlantic, and the Arctic, and is an experienced field scientist. In addition to the field campaigns, Helen runs laboratory experiments to study fundamental bubble physics and acoustics.

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego was her door into bubbles and oceans, followed by a postdoc at the Graduate School of Oceanography in Rhode Island. then she came back to the UK to start her own research program on the physics of oceanic bubbles, first at the University of Southampton and then at her current academic home, University College London.

Helen was in programs, starting in 2012, like “Orbit: Earth’s Extraordinary Journey”, a three-part series on BBC Two, in March 2012, co-presented with Kate Humble. Also in 2012, she was in “Operation Iceberg”, “The Transit of Venus”, “Stargazing Challenges”, and “Dara Ó Briain’s Science Club”. In 2012, “The Secret Life of the Sun”, and “Pop! The Science of Bubbles”. In 2014 she was in “The £10 Million Challenge”, a Horizon which launched the Longitude Prize 2014^[2], “What’s Wrong with Our Weather?” which examined the possible causes of Britain’s recent extreme weather and what connects all the recent extreme winters, and the three-part series “Super Senses: The Secret Power of Animals”.

In 2015 she was in the three-part series “Colour: The Spectrum of Science” on the 15 colors that tell the story of the Earth, life, and scientific discovery. In 2016, Helen appeared in the six-part series “Dangerous Earth” showing how new camera technology is revealing the inner workings of the Earth’s most spectacular natural wonders.

In 2017 she was in “The Infinite Monkey Cage – The Science of Everyday Life”, and the two-part series “Sound Waves: The Symphony of Physics”. In 2018, Helen took part in “From Ice to Fire: The Incredible Science of Temperature” a three-part series. In 2019, she was in “WMG Future Batteries | Fully Charged”. 2020 brought her appearance in a 90-minute film “Ocean Autopsy: The Secret Story of Our Seas”, and “Royal Institution Christmas Lectures – Planet Earth: A user’s guide” a four-part series.

Helen has appeared on “The Museum of Curiosity” (BBC Radio 4), and the web TV podcast show “Fully Charged”. She contributes to BBC Focus in the column “Everyday Science” and the Wall Street Journal in the column “Everyday Physics”. Czerski has a regular column in BBC Focus magazine and was shortlisted in for columnist of the year at the 2014 PPA Awards.

Her first book, Storm in a Teacup, was published in the UK in November 2016 and has been translated into 16 languages. It was the joint winner of the 2018 Asimov Prize (a national Italian science book prize awarded by the Gran Sasso Science Institute), named one of the top ten physics books of 2016 by Physics World, and has been awarded the Louis J. Mountbatten Author’s award by the American Meteorological Society. Helen’s next book, Blue Machine, will be published in the UK on the 1st of June 2023, and in the USA on 3 October 2023.