Up Close with Lenaic Couedel
Personal Profile
Lenaic Couedel is a French student, from Nantes, a big city near the west coast of France. He is in his first year of Master of Physics (note: equivalent to honours in Australia) at the Universit é Joseph Fourier in Grenoble (France, in the Alps). He took up an internship here at CPL as part of the French requirements in validating his diploma. He chose to study complex plasma at CPL because of his major interest in the area of plasma physics.
Lenaic Couedel, our French exchange student, will unfortunately be leaving CPL (hopefully only temporarily) on this friday due to his completion of his project. I took up the opportunity to an interview with him before his departure.
F: Felix
Cheung
L: Lenaic Couedel
F: Good morning Lenaic. Wow! I cannot believe that you have been here for 4 months already.
L: I can't believe it either. It seems like I just arrived yesterday.
F: So how was life for you in Sydney during the last 4 months? Did you enjoy being in Sydney?
L: Life in Sydney was very good. It is supposed to be winter now in Sydney but it feels like spring in France (note: 12 °C outside according to our School of Physics live weather data). Moreover, Sydney is a beautiful city and I find Australians to be very nice people
F: So did you visit many places while you were in Australia?
L: In New South Wales, I visited many areas around Sydney including the city Orange. In Victoria, I visited Melbourne just last month and I went to the famous Great Ocean Road. After this week in August, I am planning to travel through the Northern Territorries.
F: Oh you must visit the Ayers Rock and try out some of the local produces while you are there. By the way, did you miss your French cuisine while in Australia?
L: A LOT! It's difficult to find good food in Australia especially cheese.
F: Haha... It's not that bad, is it? Now seriously, over the past four months, you have worked extremely hard and produced alot of impressive results and outcomes from your project. Can you tell us some of your achievements/challenges while you were at CPL?
L: I showed that the particle charges have a great influence on the behaviour of two vertically aligned dust particle system in the plasma sheath. I showed that the force between the two particles depends a lot of the plasma environment such as ion wake. The results will be published in an article which I have just finished written up. I regreted the fact I haven't enough time to achieve a good model able to explain properly experimental data. If only I had more time...
F: What did you enjoy the most while working in CPL?
L: All the people in the CPL are very nice. The atmosphere is very good. Lot of useful discussions, seminars.... It is the perfect environment for me to work efficiently.
F: Any suggestions/improvements you would like to see in CPL?
L: I would like to promote the use of GNU/Linux on all CPL computers.
F: (Eye rolled backwards) Errr.. and from your point of view, what do you see in the study of complex plasma?
L: I think it is a powerful tool for plasma diagnostics and promises future improvements in plasma technologies
F: From an exchange student point of view, what do you see as being some of the advantages in your exchange program?
L: I get to learn another language and to work as a group.
F: Aw... do you think our readers will get to see you again in the near future, Lenaic?
L: I am currently applying for my PhD in the French-Australian Cotutelle program, so, maybe....
F: Well, we are hoping to see you soon! All the best of luck.
L: Thankyou
20/07/2004
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