Catherine Pitt
I used to be a PhD student in the Phase Transformations and
Modelling Group at the Department
of Materials Science and Metallurgy
of the University of Cambridge. However I escaped, finished my PhD, and am now a computer officer at Pembroke College just over the road, which is more fun than research.
For those who really need to know what I look like, here is the
obligatory picture of me. I'm the one on
the right. There is an on-line copy of my CV in HTML and plain text.
My Research
During my time at Materials Science I did research into the wear behaviour of
carbide-free bainitic rail steels which is sponsored by British Steel, who have since become Corus Group. There is a
longer description of my project with
relevant links if you would like all the details, or try the Phase Transformations
Group home page if you are just interested in bainite. Bainite is fascinating and despite having fled from Materials Science to systems administration I can still rave about it to anyone who will listen. As well
as actually doing research I spent quite a lot of my time in the lab helping people
with the computers.
Interests
I am actively involved the the Cambridge University
Role-Playing Society. I was President of the society at one point. I've been involved in lots of campaigns over the years but my current one is a weekly Star Wars campaign which I'm GMing.
Most of the rest of my free time seems to be taken up by teaching undergraduates but I also knit and am trying to grow plants to eat in a small way. This year I have planted chillis, aubergines, and sweet peppers.
Computers
Since starting research I have become very interested in UNIX in
general, and Linux in particular.
Linux is a free (in both senses of the word) UNIX-like operating
system. There are several different distributions available;
my preferred one is Debian GNU/Linux which I have
installed on a ridiculous variety of PCs now. I have also installed Red Hat Linux. I administer various Linux machines at work these days, which means that my house network isn't getting the attention it used to. It currently has a Sparc IPX running Debian Sparc Linux, a PC running FreeBSD and a dual boot Windows/Debian PC.
Links
The usual selection of web sites I find useful or amusing.
- Useful Links
- Amusing Links
Catherine
Pitt
22/1/99
