Current activities

• 2024-2028 PhD: Rumesh Sudhaharan (HetSys CDT, University of Warwick) - jointly with Prof. James Sprittles and Dr. Thomas Sykes. Rumesh's project represents an exciting new cross-disciplinary study into the microstructural development inside spreading and solidifying droplets, with important ramifications towards solving key challenges such as efficiency-reducing ice accretion on wind turbines and poor bonding in the 3D printing of metals.

• 2023-2027 PhD: Minerva Schuler (HetSys CDT, University of Warwick) - jointly with Dr. Ferran Brosa Planella. Minerva's project is built around the understanding and design improvement of bioreactors as prototypical devices for alternative protein source growth. The work brings together multi-physics mathematical modelling, interfacial flow dynamics and industrial mathematics, with a focus on high performance computing and sustainable software development.

• 2022-2026 PhD: Sebastian Dooley (HetSys CDT, University of Warwick) - jointly with Prof. James Sprittles and Dr. Albert Bartok-Partay. Sebastian's work will concentrate on hybrid modelling methodologies at the interface between physics-based and data-driven approaches for liquid films, involving both fundamental physical modelling and equation discovery techniques.

• 2021-2025 PhD: Oscar Holroyd (HetSys CDT, University of Warwick) - jointly with Dr. Susana Gomes. Oscar's doctoral project focuses on control strategies for multi-fluid systems that take advantage of a hierarchical modelling approach in which reduced-order models combine with direct numerical simulation techniques, combining the efficiency of the former with the accuracy of the latter towards an elegant heterogeneous modelling platform for thin film flows.

Beyond our campus :

• 2022-2025 PDRA: Dr. Minki Kim (Harris Lab at Brown University) - jointly with Prof. Daniel Harris. Minki's project is aimed at developing the computational infrastructure and testing of open-source software for the computational modelling of rocking wave bioreactors used in the cultivated meat industry.

• 2023-2026 PhD: Chengfeng Xu (Applied Mathematics PhD, Imperial College London) - jointly with Prof. Demetrios Papageorgiou. Chengfeng's project lies in the space of interfacial ferromagnetic flows, with thin films falling down fibres being modelled with both analytical and computational tools.

Former students and projects

• 2023-2024 UG: Huw Llewellyn and Zihan Zhou (Warwick Mathematics Institute) have worked on 3rd Year Essays on thermocapillary flow modelling of fluid flows using the finite element method, as well as the mathematical modelling of bouncing droplets.

• 2023-2024 UG: William Gillow (Warwick Mathematics Institute) - 4th Year Project led by Dr. Thomasina Ball. William's (award-winning!) research in his final undergraduate year focused on the asymptotic modelling of viscous gravity-driven flows with non-Newtonian rheologies.

• 2018-2023 DPhil: Benjamin Fudge (Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, University of Oxford) - jointly with Prof. Alfonso Castrejon-Pita. Ben's work concentrates on the dynamics of splashing in a variety on contexts using both high-speed laboratory experiments and high-definition numerical simulations.

• 2018-2022 DPhil: Michael Negus (Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford) - jointly with Dr. Matthew Moore and Prof. James Oliver. Michael's key interests lie in the analytical and numerical study of interfacial flows, in particular high-speed impact onto deformable substrates.

• 2023 UG: William Gillow and Zihan Zhou completed 8-week summer projects as part of Warwick's Undergraduate Research Support Scheme, doing some fantastic work on the mathematical modelling of bouncing drops and PDE discovery of shockwave equations, respectively. William also showcased his project in the Resonate Roadshow public event organised by the Warwick Institute of Engagement.

• 2022-2023 UG: Chengfeng Xu (Warwick Mathematics Institute), with a 4th year research project concentrating on the modelling and numerical solution of thermocapillary liquid films within the context of liquid-based cooling systems.

• 2022 UG: Chanon Olley and Lucas Ong Chen Ping finished 8-week summer projects as part of Warwick's Undergraduate Research Support Scheme, focusing on network modelling and population dynamics models (via the Google Earth API), as well as modelling of interfacial flows and heat transfer in evaporating drops (with a nice summary here).

• 2021-2022 UG: Sebastian Dooley (Warwick Mathematics Institute). Sebastian's work was geared towards the application of partial differential equation discovery techniques for mathematical model design, using physical insight in combination with data-driven approaches in order to identify complex dynamics in cases where fundamental modelling principles reach a bottleneck.

• 2021-2022 UG: Samuel Baldwin (Warwick Mathematics Institute) - jointly with Dr. Susana Gomes. Sam's work was grounded in the modelling of the stochastic behaviour of asset prices via a range of agent-based modelling and differential equation based techniques towards the identification of well-performing trading strategies in modern financial markets.

• 2020-2021 UG: Oscar Holroyd (Warwick Mathematics Institute) - jointly with Dr. Susana Gomes. Oscar's 4th year project focuses on heterogeneous modelling of secondary droplet dynamics resulting from violent splashing problems, with a mixture of computational, PDE and agent-based techniques.

• 2021 UG: Benny Smith (Brown University) - jointly with Prof. Daniel Harris. Benny's project focuses on the implementation, validation and dissemination of open-source software for the computational modelling of rocking bioreactors used in the cultivated meat industry.

• 2021 UG: Alexia Huang and Hubert Naguszewski worked on 8-week summer projects as part of Warwick's Undergraduate Research Support Scheme, creating a framework for improving our understanding of air pollution via aerosolised oil particles after an oil spill using a combination of fluid mechanical and statistical approaches, and investigating highly nonlinear drop deformation in external flows using computational modelling, respectively.

• 2020 PG: Kamran Pentland (MathSys CDT, University of Warwick) - jointly with Dr. Ed Brambley. Kamran's M.Sc. project focused on nonlinear aspects of drop deformation under the action of accelerating gas flows, particularly in the context of high-speed impact onto aircraft parts.

• 2020 UG: Andreea Popescu, Anish Gupta and Oscar Holroyd have completed 10-week summer projects under the competitive Undergraduate Research Support Scheme in Warwick, with topics ranging from modelling in interfacial flows to scientific computing for PDEs, computational acoustics to machine-learning-based methods for control design. 

• 2018 PG: Harry Reynolds (InFoMM CDT, University of Oxford) - jointly with Dr. Matthew Moore and Prof. James Oliver. Harry's mini-project (with Elkem Norway as industrial partner) concentrated on the modelling of the dynamics and impact of small-scale silicone particles onto molten metal baths, including generating predictive capabilities for entry criteria.

• 2018 PG: Thomas Babb (InFoMM CDT, University of Oxford) - jointly with Prof. James Oliver. Tom's mini-project (with Thales Aerospace as industrial partner) consisted in characterising droplet trajectories and impingement dynamics onto Pitot tubes in unmanned aerial vehicles,  with a view to improve our understanding of water collection efficiency and aid design principles in these geometries.

• 2015 - 2017 UG: I have guided three M.Sc. projects and one Undergraduate Summer Research Project within the Department of Mathematics of Imperial College London, with three of the students subsequently starting doctoral research activities in the department.