Dr Laura Clark
Royal Society University Research Fellow and Proleptic Senior Lecturer at the University of York
Astronomy and physics · Materials science
For Laura Clark, an image is never just a picture. It is data, full of stories just waiting to be told. And through her work on advanced imaging techniques, and with data and algorithms as her tools, she develops new ways of revealing these stories, helping scientists to see what was previously invisible.
Working across disciplinary boundaries, the applications of Laura’s work span chemistry, engineering and materials science, helping to reveal the structures, defects and secrets that determine how materials behave.
From next-generation solar cells to longer-lasting batteries, her imaging methods help researchers understand why materials work, why they fail and how they might be improved. In this way, her work forms part of a much larger chain of discovery helping to build the technologies needed for a more sustainable future.
This fascination with how we see and understand the world has shaped her career, propelling her to develop ever more powerful ways of exploring materials at their smallest scales and helping others experience the wonder of seeing atoms for the first time.
And while Laura's research quite literally helps people see differently, it has also shaped how she views science itself. Driven by curiosity and a love of exploration, Laura believes that scientific discovery is as much about learning what doesn't work as finding what does. After all, as she puts it, scientists know a great deal, but they also know just how much remains to be understood.