Simon James Clark

Simon James Clark
Simon Clark.jpg Simon Clark.jpg
Born	(1990-10-22) October 22, 1990 Torquay, Devon, England
🏳️ Nationality	United Kingdom
🏫 Education	University of Oxford (MPhys) University of Exeter (PhD)
💼 Occupation	Atmospheric Physicist Science communicator
Known for	SimonOxfPhys on YouTube
🏡 Home town	Keynsham, Bristol, Somerset, England
🌐 Website	simonoxfphys.com

Simon James Clark is a British theoretical and atmospheric physicist and science communicator. He is best known for making educational science content and vlogs about his experiences as a student on YouTube. He has also done many collaborations with creators and communicators such as Acapella Science, Real Engineering, and The Yogscast. He completed his PhD at the University of Exeter researching dynamical stratosphere-troposphere coupling over the Arctic.

Education

Clark attended Wellsway School in Keynsham from 2002 to 2009. He studied physics at the University of Oxford starting in 2009, and graduated with a Master of Physics degree in 2013. He then moved on to the University of Exeter, completing his PhD, specialising in theoretical and atmospheric physics, in 2017.

Research

Clark completed his PhD at the University of Exeter researching dynamical stratosphere-troposphere coupling over the Arctic, under the supervision of Professor Mark Baldwin. His research focused on the coupling of events in the polar troposphere and the polar stratosphere, with particular focus to the tropospheric impact of extreme stratospheric events, such as sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs), on the troposphere. He derived a new quasi-geostophic theoretical framework and associated index of the coupling phenomenon. He presented his research at AGU 2015 and at EGU 2016.

YouTube Career

In 2010, Clark created his YouTube channel Simonoxfphys. His initial aim was to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds apply to prestigious universities. This was achieved through providing an insider's perspective of the admissions process. This then moved to providing a perspective of student life from an actual student. These were both resources he wished were available to him when applying to university. Clark has published many vlogs, or 'A day/week in the life' videos to do just that. This was something he continued while studying for his PhD. He has also produced a couple of educational series about the physics of the atmosphere and cryosphere.

St Peter's College, Oxford YouTube Channel

Upon realising the success Clark had been having with his own channel, he proposed that his college made a channel. They then tasked him with this. To begin with the plan was to do a few interviews with current students at the college, in order to present their perspectives of student life, the college and university. This channel became so successful, it has had a lasting impact on the ways in which many colleges at the university go about doing access work.

The Oxvlog Project

Simon is the founder of the Oxvlog project.

Following and building on the success of his own channel and that of St Peter's, Clark - now in the fourth year of his undergraduate studies at Oxford - pondered the idea of doing weekly vlogs with the aim of providing an honest student perspective of life at the University of Oxford. Thus forming the Oxvlog project. It began as a series of vlogs on Clark's personal channel. Upon graduating from Oxford, Clark wanted the project to continue and so pushed the university to continue the project but as a collaboration of undergraduate students from all colleges across the university. This suggestion did not receive much interest and so Clark took matters into his own hands and made a dedicated channel for the project and recruited five undergraduates, who went on to amass over 100,000 views and dedicated followings of their own.

Public Engagement

In 2015, Simon received a $2000 scholarship to support the creation of educational content on YouTube through the Project for Awesome from the Foundation to Decrease World Suck. In 2017 he was selected as a winner of YouTube NextUp 2017, a national competition for YouTube channels with between 10k and 100k subscribers demonstrating quality production and potential for growth. For this he received a grant to support his channel and improve video content and subsequently was part of the first Global Creator Camp in New York.

In the past, Clark has produced videos for companies such as Airbus, and the European Central Bank. He has also featured in a series of physics: practical skills videos on BBC Bitesize. In 2018, Clark gave a talk at a TEDx event at Lancaster University, speaking about how to use video to educate. He has also spoken about Chaos theory at Eton college.

During his time at the University of Oxford, Clark was awarded the Gibbs prize for public speaking, the Scott prize for teaching and learning physics in schools, and two OxTALENT awards for his work on outreach via social media. Then while at the University of Exeter, he went on to receive XMedia awards for Best Radio Show and Most Innovative Project for co-hosting the radio show The Science Hour on XpressionFM; the campus's radio station.

The Wikicast

The Wikicast is a podcast hosted by Simon and his good friend and ex-housemate Daniel Maw, whom he met while at the University of Exeter. The general premise surrounds clicking the "Random article" button on Wikipedia and discussing whatever article they land on. Often there are guest appearances made by friends or colleagues of the pair. Generally these occur on episodes that are multiples of ten. Episodes are released on a fortnightly basis. The podcast features many segments, or "corners". These include Critics' Corner, Patreon Corner, Correspondence Corner, and Dan's Choral Piece of the Week. The podcast is not-for-profit and is primarily supported by Patreon subscriptions.

Spongy and Electric

Clark and Maw also have a joint YouTube channel called "Spongy and Electric". The majority of uploads are the Wikicast episodes but there are also short vlogs and play-throughs of Kerbal Space Program and Getting Over It. The first few videos on the channel are film reviews.

Twitch Streaming

Clark regularly streams on his Twitch channel. The usual schedule is twice weekly. The first, on Wednesday evening, and the second, on Sunday afternoon. On Wednesdays, Clark will go through a maths or physics paper, typically from ages 16-18 or undergraduate level, or sometimes textbook questions, with the aim of it being a fun way of teaching physics or maths. The Sunday streams are generally more relaxed and Clark will play-through a video-game. Currently the game of choice is Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus. In the past, Clark has streamed games such as Kerbal Space Program to keep within the idea of 'educational content'.

A list of past exam papers Clark has gone through on his Wednesday evening streams can be found on his website.

More recently, with the Coronavirus pandemic forcing everyone into lockdown, Clark has been streaming more regularly, almost daily. Clark is currently coding an atmospheric model, Called "CLAuDE". Through these streams he is trying to educate the viewers on coding in python, and also on atmospheric physics. He has also done a "live coding" stream where he attempted to solve a theoretical problem proposed to him by Simon Lane of The Yogscast, using python. Clark has also streamed a selection of video-games including, The Sims 4, Guns of Icarus Online and Minecraft.

On Fridays, Clark is currently painting an army of Warhammer 40k Orks, called "Hawaii 5 Ork". These are kitbashed Orks from Games Workshop, characterized by their grass skirts, Hawaiian shirts, sunglasses and pineapples.

Personal Life

Clark currently lives with his fiance, who is affectionately referred to as a 'Pixel Girl'. The name came about as Clark pixelates her face in any appearance of her in his vlogs. The aim is to keep Pixel Girl's identity confidential due to her choice of career.

In addition to his scientific and videographic interests he has been a musician for his entire adult life, playing the cornet and saxophone before becoming a bass choral scholar at the University of Exeter. He toured nationally and internationally with the choir, and has been recorded as a chorus member and a soloist. He has had a lifelong interest in books, writing, cinema and music.

Clark has also recently adopted a 17-year-old female cat called "Jasmine".

External links

• Official website

This article "Simon Clark (physicist)" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Simon Clark (physicist). Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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