Josie Auckett is a third-year PhD student at the University of Sydney's School of Chemistry. Her main research interest lies in learning how to grow bigger and better crystals of mixed-metal oxides using the "floating-zone furnace" method. (Google it – you'll wish you had one!) Her thesis will focus on the crystallographic and physical properties of oxide ion-conducting materials, especially the iron- and cobalt-based brownmillerites, with an experimental emphasis on neutron scattering.