Andy is a Cryogenics Engineer with the Accelerator Science and Technology Centre at the STFC Daresbury Laboratory, where he works under Shrikant Pattalwar. Currently, his primary area of work is on the development and operation of the new Vertical Test Facility for 2 K qualification of the high-beta SRF cavities being developed for the European Spallation Source. He also contributes to several other research programs at Daresbury, including cryostat development for the characterisation of SRF thin films.
Prior to joining STFC, he received his PhD, MSc and MEng from the University of Manchester, where he retains a visiting research fellowship. His doctoral thesis, supervised by Prof Lucio Piccirillo, was entitled “Sub-Kelvin Cryogenics for Experimental Cosmology”. During his thesis work, Andy was responsible for the design, modelling, development, testing, delivery, and integration of a number of novel millikelvin systems for several forthcoming Cosmic Microwave Background polarization observatories. This work was carried out as part of a number of international collaborations, where he spent time as a visiting student at the University of California, San Diego and the Laboratoire Astroparticule et Cosmologie at Université Paris Diderot. Prior to his postgraduate work, he spent 12 months at Daresbury, where he contributed to the cryomodule design for the HiLumi LHC crab cavities and the development of various cryogenic systems for the ALICE energy recovery linac.
In the course of his research, Andy has both led and otherwise contributed to over 40 journal papers and conference proceedings, including
· May, A. J., et al. "A highly effective superfluid film breaker for high heat-lift 1 K sorption coolers." Cryogenics 102 (2019): 45-49.
· May, A. J., et al. "Thermal architecture for the QUBIC cryogenic receiver." Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy IX. Vol. 10708. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2018.
· May, A. J., et al. "Development of a sorption-cooled continuous miniature dilution refrigerator for 100 mK detector testing." IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering. Vol. 502. No. 1. IOP Publishing, 2019.
· May, A. J, et al. "Thermal and mechanical analysis of the radiation shield design for HiLumi LHC crab cavity cryomodule." Physics Procedia 67 (2015): 314-319.
He is also co-author of the textbook Miniature Sorption Coolers: Theory and Applications with Prof Piccirillo. Andy is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has co-supervised several MPhys and MSc research projects at Manchester.
Andy's thesis, Sub-Kelvin Cryogenics for Experimental Cosmology, is available to read.
