NPL's Laurie Winkless appeared on the BBC weekly radio show, The Naked Scientists, on Sunday 12 February to discuss thermoelectric generators, or TEGs. The podcast of the show is now available to listen to here.

The Naked Scientists is an award winning BBC weekly radio programme which reaches a potential audience of six million listeners across the east of England and has an international following on the web. The presenters are a group of scientists from Cambridge University, led by Dr Chris Smith, who use radio, lectures and the internet to present science to the general public in a fun and engaging way.

Laurie's main research focus at NPL is on thermoelectric materials and devices, and in the radio programme she discusses how these devices can be used to take energy that would otherwise be wasted as heat and convert it into usable electricity. She was joined on the show by Professor Andrew Know from Glasgow University and Dr Richard Ambrosi from the University of Leicester. One application of thermoelectric devices could be in transport as up to 70 % of the energy released by fuel in a car engine is lost, mostly as heat. As well as taking part in the radio show, Laurie also wrote an article for The Naked Scientists website and the initial script for a short Scrapbook episode.

Laurie is a keen science communicator and in 2011 she represented NPL at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition and was shortlisted for the 2011 WISE Excellence award. She will be working more with The Naked Scientists and continuing her outreach work at NPL, so you'll be seeing, and hearing, a lot more of her in the future.

More on NPL's work on Advanced Materials

For more information, please contact Laurie Winkless