Bill Ward at graduationA lifelong passion for astronomy has led laser technician Bill Ward to gain a PhD from the University of Glasgow.

In his spare time, Bill used low cost off the shelf video cameras to conduct astronomy experiments, which produced highly successful results. His research, which has spanned over a decade, has been published in a number of publications.

From this, Bill went down the PhD by publication route. This is an alternative path from the traditional PhD by thesis and allows the applicant to submit a number of published papers along with an explanatory essay instead of a thesis.

Professor Marc Sorel in the School of Engineering encouraged Bill to embark on a PhD after seeing some of his work.

Bill said: I can’t believe I’m officially Dr Ward. I didn’t even realise PhD by publication was an option available to me until Marc told me to go for it. Marc was extremely supportive throughout and I could not have done it without him.”

PhD by publication is rare and out of more than 1600 PhD’s awarded by UofG since 2012, less than 10 have been gained this way.

“From my registration to viva was only 7 months although it was based on 12 years of my own work beforehand,” said Bill ‌‌“I have been looking at the night sky forever. I spent some time working at an observatory in Australia before joining the University and that really cemented my interest in the subject.”

Security cameraBill has been a technician in the School of Engineering for 22 years and completed the PhD alongside his job. To make matters more difficult, he broke his arm shortly after registering and typed most of the work with just his left hand!

He said: “It’s all happened so quickly that it has taken a while to sink in.

"It has gone from something that was a bit of fun to having some real worth and that feels really good. I would love to pursue this topic further now that I have the PhD.”

Bill graduated in the Bute Hall on 23 June. 

Bill Ward in la Palma

First published: 27 June 2017

<< 2017 May-Jun