Research Interests

My research interests are:

• Healthcare modelling
• Health economics
• Multi-criteria decision analysis
• Optimisation

Research interests

• Health economic modelling
• Economic analyses of therapies for multiple sclerosis
• Economic analyses of cancer therapies
• Whole disease modelling

Research Interests

I have extensive experience in modelling and have contributed to the methodology of economic evaluation in various areas. In 1993 I was one of the earliest researchers to apply discrete event models and was the first to apply a non-parametric method to estimate costs in the presence of censoring[1]. In 1994 I was the first to apply Fieller´s approach to calculate confidence intervals around cost-effectiveness ratios, and I introduced the acceptability curve, which is now a well known concept in cost effectiveness analysis[2]. In 1996 I was one of the first to apply probabilistic sensitivity analysis[3]. In 2000 I was one of the initial people to explore Bayesian techniques in economic evaluation[4]. I have had work published on discounting[5] and estimating utility functions[6].

I am one of the founding members of the EuroQol group and I currently enjoy chairing the valuation task force within the EQ-5D group. My experience covers several therapeutic areas, including renal disease, cancer, osteoporosis, sepsis, schizophrenia, blood safety and most notably cardiovascular disease. My main interest concerns the use of elegant techniques, mostly to solve practical problems, but sometimes also because of the elegance itself.

Research interests:

Robin's research aims to help improve how we identify and choose between possible solutions to a problem, with a particular focus on the process of policy appraisal. There are a number of factors that make policy appraisal a challenging research area:

• Multiple trade-offs
• Multiple stakeholders
• Deep uncertainty
• Cognitive challenge

Dr Andrew Burlinson joined University of Sheffield’s Department of Economics as Lecturer in September 2023, and is a member of the Sheffield Urban, International Trade and Environmental Economics (SUITE) group and the Centre for Competition Policy (CCP). 

Andrew joined Sheffield following his Lectureship in Energy Economics at the University of East Anglia (NBS). Before joining UEA he returned to the University of Warwick as a teaching fellow in the Department of Economics, following postdoctoral research associate roles in Loughborough University's School of Business and Economics.

Andrew holds a PhD at Warwick Business School (Economic Modelling and Forecasting Group) - funded by Ofgem’s Low Carbon Network Fund. He was awarded a distinction in Economics (MSc) at the University of Nottingham and a first-class hons degree in Economics (BSc) at Newcastle University/University of Groningen.

Dr Andrew Burlinson has published in international peer-reviewed journals including, Research Policy, Social Science and Medicine, and Energy Economics. He has worked on several projects funded by UKERC, Ofgem, EPSRC and CERRE.

Andrew is embedded in the current policy and research areas of consumer decision-making on the adoption of energy efficient and renewable technologies, and inequality within energy markets, with a focus on the deleterious effects of poverty on health, wellbeing, and healthy eating, as well as the resilience of households to high energy prices.

Andrew has contributed to policy discussions and roundtables with leading experts and practitioners, including the APPG on Fuel Poverty and Energy Efficiency, the Westminster Energy, Environment and Transport Forum, Ofgem and National Energy Action.

His findings have received national (e.g., BBC Radio, Daily Mail, ITV, The Sun) and global interest (Africa, Asia, Europe, and America), as well as featured in Understanding Society's Insights Report, National Energy Action's 2023 Fuel Poverty Monitor, and Nottingham City Council’s Fuel Poverty Strategy (2018-2025).

Dr Maria-Cruz Villa-Uriol's main research interests are:

• the personalisation of models using computational imaging and modelling techniques, 
• the composition of scientific workflows, 
• and the use and development of data-driven decision-making strategies to support clinical decisions using heterogeneous data sources.

The data sources typically used in ther research are:

• personalised VPH (Virtual Physiological Human) models, 
• clinical databases, 
• mobile sensors capturing a wide variety of variables describing an individual and his/her environment and mobile healthcare. 

Her primary area of interest is in the cardiovascular domain with an emphasis in clinical translation.

She is member of the Organisations, Information and Knowledge Group (Oak), INSIGNEO institute for in silico Modelling and Center for Assistive Technology and Connected Healthcare (CATCH).

Research Interests

• Health economic modelling of public health policies, particularly relating to tobacco and alcohol.
• Social inequalities in the effects of policies and interventions.
• Demographic change and forecasting, particularly trends in cause-specific mortality.
• Lifecourse dynamics of health and the social determinants of health
• Commercial determinants of health.
• Individual-based modelling methodologies.
• Methods for improving the reproducibility and transparency of modelling research.
• The integration of qualitative research with mathematical modelling methods.

My current interests are in the use of routinely collected care data for the purpose of costing analysis, economic analysis and decision modelling. I also have an interest in the capability-approach and extra-wefarism and its conceptual and practical application to economic evaluations and decision making, and the conceptual and practical use of outcome measures in general.

I can supervise students interested in the use of large databases of rountinely collected care data for health economic analysis and decision modelling problems. These databases include, but are not limited to:

• Secondary Uses Service (SUS)
• Hospital Episode Statistics (HES)
• Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD)
• ResearchOne

My Research interests

I have three related research interests that fall under the general banner of Uncertainty Quantification: (1) how do we properly account for all relevant uncertainties when we build a computer model of a physical, biological or social system? (2) how do we (efficiently) compute value of information? (3) how do we work out the value of a computer model? How much should we pay to make a simple model more complex? When do we stop increasing the complexity of a model?

Jeremy Oakley, Jim Chilcott and I have proposed an "internal" discrepancy-based method for managing model uncertainty. See this paper in JRSS Series C, and this paper in SIAM/ASA Journal of Uncertainty Quantification. The method is discussed in more detail in my PhD thesis.

We have proposed an efficient method for computing partial EVPI. This method works for any number of parameters of interest and requires only the PSA sample. See this open access paper in Medical Decision Making. R functions to implement the method can be downloaded here. This paper uses Gaussian process-based methods that are nicely described in the  Managing Uncertainty in Complex Models (MUCM) toolkit.

The partial EVPI method extends nicely to the computation of EVSI. See here for our open access paper on the efficient computation of EVSI.

Research interests

Sarah's research interests lie in the area of applied microeconometrics focusing on labour economics, the economics of education and, more recently, household financial decision-making. Her research has focused on individual, household and firm-level data as well as matched workplace-employee data.

Examples of research projects include empirical analysis of the reservation wages of the unemployed (funded by the ESRC) and empirical analysis of wage growth, human capital and risk aversion (funded by the Leverhulme Trust). Her current research focuses on household financial decision-making and attitudes towards risk. Sarah is interested in supervising PhD students in applied microeconometrics.

Research interests

• Agent (individual) based Modelling in predicting emergent properties of biological tissues
• Multiscale Modelling in biological and biomedical applications
• Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) for the diagnosis of early cancerous changes in epithelial tissues

Broad area of interest:

Research methods I am able to supervise:

Research Interests

• Systematic review and evidence synthesis of medical, health and social science topics, including qualitative and mixed method evidence synthesis
• The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) process
• Information retrieval and programme evaluation (implementation fidelity) research

Research interests

My research focuses on exploring the functioning of local property markets, from the perspective of improving the knowledge and information base for property investment decision-making. This focus highlights the role of local characteristics and context in market performance.

Specific interests include - local retail rental determination; retail policy and market performance; and the operation of office and industrial markets.

• Identification and modelling for complex nonlinear systems
  
  • NARMAX methodology and applications.
  • Artificial neural networks (ANN), radial basis function networks (RBFN), wavelet neural networks and multiresolution wavelet models, computational statistics, machine learning, intelligent computation and data mining.
  • Regression analysis, parameter estimation and optimization, sparse representation.
  • Nonlinear and nonstationary (time-varying) signal processing, system identification and data modelling.
  • Spatio-temporal system identification and modelling.
• Bioscience signal processing and data modelling
  
  • Neurophysiology and neuro-imaging data modelling and analysis.
  • EEG, fMRI and ECG data processing, modelling and analysis.
  • Data based classification, pattern recognition, anomaly detection, with applications in clinical and medical diagnosis and prognosis.
• Forecasting and analysis of complex stochastic dynamical processes with applications in
  
  • Space weather systems.
  • Environmental systems.
  • Computational economics and finance.
• New concepts and methodologies developments for the identification and analysis of nonlinear complex systems.
• Applications and developments of signal processing, system identification and data modelling to control engineering, bioengineering, neuroscience, systems/synthetic biology, environments, space weather and other emerging areas.

Research Interests

My research interest is in evaluation of healthcare interventions through modelling the long-term clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness.

Specific areas of interest:

• Evaluations of public health programmes
• Screening and early detection
• Natural history disease modelling
• Cancer modelling
• Calibration of the models
• Transferability of models and cost-effectiveness studies
• Global research

Research Interests

My research interests predominantly surround urban drainage and areas of expertise include: Monitoring and modelling of hydraulics and water quality in urban drainage systems and associated watercourses; Application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in urban drainage; Modelling of surface water flooding; Application of rainfall radar to urban drainage; Laboratory and field testing particularly of CSOs and storage tanks; Solute tracing and analysis for determination of travel time and dispersion parameters; Application of GIS for visualisation and assessment of overland flow paths and flooding; Asset performance modelling; pressure transients in water distribution systems; asset condition and deterioration.

Research Interests

• Radiation simulation, measurement and mitigation
• Modelling silicon detector radiation damage
• Particle detector technologies
• Soft QCD physics at the Large Hadron Collider

Research Projects

• ATLAS
• ATLAS Upgrade
• RRUS (Innovate UK)
• ReDRESS (Innovate UK)

The fascination for built environment led me to a Bachelor award in Architecture (B.Arch). As an Architect I gained international experience working for an architectural practice in Dubai. Realizing that there is enormous potential to bridge the gap between urban planning and building architecture, led me to a post graduate qualification in Urban design (MArch) from the University of Nottingham.

I moved full-time into academia as a Graduate Teaching Associate at University of Bolton in where I was lecturing and doing a PhD in Design decision-making and graduated PGCHE (PG cert in Teaching and learning in HE) from University of Bolton. I joined the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield in September 2014.

I am the Programme Director of MA in Urban Design and Planning and run a dedicated course blog for Urban Design and Planning. I hold Senior Fellowship status of the Higher Education Academy, UK (SFHEA) and an Associate member (ACIAT) of the Chartered Institute of Architectural Technology.

National SEED Project: Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity

I am a trained SEED leader (trained in USA), I design and co-deliver the UK SEED Project here at the University of Sheffield, is a sector-leading equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) professional development programme for members of staff across the university.

Machine Learning

Dr Michael Smith's work is mainly focused in the field of uncertainty quantification and Gaussian processes, in the field of Machine learning. Previously he has worked on applying Differential privacy to Gaussian process regression and classification & bounding the capacity of adversarial attack to GP classification. Currently Dr Smith's main focus is on the problem of calibration over a network of air pollution sensors, working with colleagues in Kampala to develop a robust low-cost air pollution monitoring system and developing a method for tracking bumblebees during flight and other bumblebee related projects (classification from video, analysis of beewalk data, etc).

PhD Supervision

Dr Smith is particularly interested in hearing from research students interested in the following areas:

• Ecological modelling using probabilistic models (in particular Gaussian processes)
• Air pollution spatiotemporal modelling
• Other applications of the variational network calibration approach devised for the air pollution project

Research Interests

• Infectious disease modelling.
• Epidemiology
• Burden estimation
• TB, particularly in settings with high-HIV prevalence, and population-level TB interventions.
• TB in children.
• Individual-based modelling methodologies.
• Methods for model calibration and uncertainty analysis
• Cost-effectiveness modelling
• Global health

Research interests

• Electromagnetics and mathematical modelling
• Software development
• Mobile communications
• High temperature superconducting antennas
• Optical communications

Research interests

Dr Steve Maddock's research interests include computer facial modelling and animation, surface deformation, AR and VR technology and applications, and sketch-based interfaces for simulation.

My research focuses on explainable and trustworthy machine learning (ML). Explainability is multifaceted in this context; I work on mathematical and computational methods in Computational Intelligence (CI) that enable enhanced understanding and transparent information use for neural networks, visual and numerical performance measures for many-objective optimisation algorithms, as well as linguistic interpretations of models, and safe control systems. Explainability and trustworthiness are key barriers in using machine learning in a range of critical applications, e.g. in engineering, and healthcare. A multitude of research questions still need to be addressed, for example how neural network - based systems learn and perform when information/data is imperfect, how can we exploit prior knowledge for enhanced learning, and how can we develop performance metrics that will allow us to understand the optimisation of systems at scale.

Towards formulating research questions in machine learning, I often use challenge-driven research e.g. in manufacturing, healthcare, as case studies. This way,  applications drive the research questions, towards maximising impact. I also use explainable machine learning for translational research and to create innovation to address global challenges (e.g. sustainability, energy). The advanced monitoring, optimisation and control of manufacturing processes is such an example, where ML-based methods can be used to reduce material waste, and minimise energy use.

I welcome PhD applications in topics that fall under Computational Intelligence, in particular when these are concerned with explainable machine learning. Examples of recent PhD projects include, physics-guided neural networks, physics-guided generative models, new performance metrics for decomposition-based many-objective optimisation, information theoretic explainability in neural networks, safe reinforcement learning, and linguistic interpretations of Convolutional Neural Networks.

A common theme throughout much of my work is genealogies. Genealogies record relationships, and transfers, of information across time and space - such as a family tree, or the spread of a news story. I study the random geometric structures that record these transfers; when viewed over large space-time scales they are often both beautiful and mathematically interesting. can Some examples:

Population genetics studies the dynamics of evolution, over long time-scales and for large numbers of organisms. Here, genetic information is passed from parent to child. My work in this area has focused on spatial effects related to natural selection, in particular on the relationship between spatial structure and the rate at which natural selection progresses.

Preferential attachment processes are randomly evolving graphs which seek to capture a 'rich get richer' mechanism. For example, already popular holiday destinations tend to be viewed as (disproportionately) more attractive, and therefore attract more new visitors; new users joining a social network are more likely to become friends with existing users who already have many friends. In this area, I am interested in the interaction between the underlying appeal and the random network effects that contribute towards information 'going viral'.

Recently, I have also been working on extensions of the Brownian web. This work involves trying to make sense of very dense systems (in space-time) of randomly moving particles, which have non-trivial interaction with one another – such as coalescing when they meet, or repelling if they get close. These systems tend to exhibit fractal-like structures, and can react very sensitively to small changes in the motions of a small fraction of the particles.

For some pictures, see http://nicfreeman.staff.shef.ac.uk/research.html

Research interests

Dr Stannett is interested in many areas of research, including Heterotic Computing, Unconventional Computing, Physics and Computation, Hypercomputation Theory, and First-Order Relativity Theories. He also has strong research links with members of the Algebraic Logic group at the Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest).

Research interests

• The use of statistics in health economics
• Extrapolation and time-series analyses
• Survival analysis and model uncertainty
• Vascular disease, cancer, depression
• Chronic diseases, mental ill health, and their interactions
• The use of health economics for pathway (service) re-design
• Mathematical modelling, including simulation

My current research interests revolve around:

• Water resilience: modelling approaches and indicators to diagnose and measure robustness, resilience and vulnerability of water supply and water supply infrastructure; applying these approaches to understand what resilience means in complex multi-scale, multi-actor systems

• Informing forecast development: using exploratory modelling and machine learning approaches to understand which forecast products are or would be most useful for water managers; implications for water infrastructure design that accounts for future operations and how these will be informed by forecasts.

• A human and natural water cycle: detection and attribution of human activity in the water cycle; representation in hydrological models; consequences for present and future water resources.

• Transboundary and developing river basins: large-scale optimisation models to promote development and management paths that protect and empower a range of water users from all riparian countries, and promote meaningful adaptation to climate change; food and energy implications of development

I am a mathematician who uses a modelling approach to understand glaciological phenomena. 

Some of my key research interests:

• Large-scale behaviour of glaciers and ice sheets, and their environmental interactions
• Mathematical models of glacial processes and landforms
• Polar ice on Mars
• Ice-crystal physics
• Radar stratigraphy of polar ice sheets
• Ice-stream flow
• Glacial outburst floods

• Self-bearing electrical machines
• Power dense electrical machines and actuators for aerospace and marine applications
• Valve actuation
• Electromagnetic modelling of novel devices

Kevin's research covers a range of topics related to fuel combustion, fuel degradation and deposit formation, pollutant chemistry, proton exchange membrane fuel cells, and process modelling in carbon capture and storage systems.

In the area of combustion, degradation, and pollutant chemistry, the approach is a combination of experimental and theoretical investigation; for example the elucidation of a simple laminar flame structure by a combination of conventional species sampling techniques allied to laser diagnostic probing of the flame structure using the technique of planar laser induced fluorescence. This provides data that allows for the validation of detailed chemical kinetic reaction mechanisms. These mechanisms are constructed by a variety of means ranging from experimental measurements of individual reaction rates, crude estimation by analogy, group additivity based methods, detailed theoretical calculation using quantum chemistry methods, and the application of master equation models to calculated potential energy surfaces. Insight is further gained by the application of sensitivity analysis methods to both allow the simplification of detailed mechanisms, and to highlight those regions of particular importance for the phenomena of interest.

In the area of proton exchange membrane fuel cells, the focus is on the CFD modelling and the experimental testing of small scale devices, and the systematic investigation of their performance as a function of operating conditions and the properties of the individual fuel cell components such as electrical conductivity and gas permeability. This is complemented by an experimental and theoretical investigation of novel catalysts, using quantum chemistry methods to predict behaviour, along with catalyst synthesis, physical and electrochemical characterization, and finally testing in real fuel cell systems.

Carbon capture and storage related research is focused on novel operating procedures related to gas turbines linked to solvent capture plants, with the aim of optimizing the overall system performance, and understanding the chemistry of solvent degradation and emissions.

Lecturer in Operations Management and Decision Sciences

My research interests are modelling optimisation problems, especially in the field of transportation and logistics, and applying operational research methodologies to solve them. I have worked on planning the activities of electric vehicles in urban transportation and I am keen to continue exploring new research areas related to green logistics and increasing the use of electric vehicles in the transportation sector.

Lecturer in Operations Management and Decision Sciences

Lecturer in Operations Management and Decision Sciences

My main research interests lie in microeconometrics, the analysis of micro level data on the economic behaviour of individuals. I am also interested in more general model and methods development to analyse individual level data showing nonstandard characteristics. Recent examples include analysis of health state utility data, health and life satisfaction, the economics of illicit behaviour, the dynamics of children developmental outcomes and applications to individuals’ decisions to participate in welfare programmes.

Research interests

Joab Winkler’s main research interests are image processing, and  algebraic and numerical properties of curves and surfaces in computer-aided design systems.

• IMAGE PROCESSING: The removal of blur and other degradations from an image arises in many applications and it may be considered a preprocessing operation before the image is interrogated for, for example, medical diagnosis. The most challenging problem arises when prior information on the source of the degradations and the exact image is not known, in which case the problem is called blind image deconvolution. My research is concerned with the application of polynomial computations, implemented using structure-preserving matrix methods, for the solution of this problem. The next stage of this work on image improvement is its extension from static images to video images for the observation of dynamic events, for example, the flow of blood.

• GEOMETRIC MODELLING: Curves and surfaces in computer aided design systems are represented by polynomials. Computational problems arise because the coefficients of these polynomials are corrupted by noise due to manufacturing tolerances and numerical approximations, and robust computations on polynomials are therefore required. Recent work on these robust computations includes the computation of a structured low rank approximation of the Sylvester resultant matrix, and the devlopment of a polynomial root solver for the determination of multiple roots of the theoretically exact form of a polynomial, when the coefficients of the given polynomial are corrupted by added noise.

• FEATURE SELECTION: Many problems in science require the identification of the most important features that characterise a system, such that the expected response of the system to new data can be accurately predicted. Problems arise because the given data that is available to identify these important features is usually insufficient to define the system uniquely, which implies that the equation to be solved has an infinite number of solutions, This raises the question as to the solution that is selected from this infinite set of solutions, and the criterion used for this selection. My research is concerned with the development of mathematical theory and methods for the selection of the best solution, defined using a specified criterion. The features that characterise a system may be a combination of numerical data, binary data and categorical data, and a mathematical model that describes a system must include these three classes of data. This problem has many applications, including bioinformatics, signal analysis, atmospheric physics, and in general, problems in which the response (output) is a function of many variables (inputs), only some of which are important and must therefore be identified.

Sihan Li is a Lecturer in Climate Science in the Department of Geography at Sheffield University. Sihan obtained her PhD in Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences from Oregon State University in 2017, on large ensembles of regional climate modelling over the Western United States. Her PhD work was focused on modelling the regional response to anthropogenic warming in complex terrain, the changing characteristics of hydrometeorological extreme events, and uncertainty quantification/reduction in climate modelling. She then moved to University of Oxford as a research associate to work on droughts and fires in the Amazonia in response to climate change. Sihan stayed in Oxford as senior research associate to work on hydrological modelling of monsoon rainfall triggered landslides in mountainous Nepal, as part of a large international interdisciplinary project Sajag-Nepal– a partnership to improve preparedness for the mountain hazard chain in Nepal.

Current Projects:

Deplete and Retreat: The Future of Andean Water Towers

Sajag-Nepal, a partnership to improve preparedness for the mountain hazard chain in Nepal (https://www.sajag-nepal.org/)

Attribution and Synopsis of Landslide Impacts from Precipitation (ASLIP) in Southeast Brazil

World Weather Attribution, an initiative to conduct real-time attribution analysis of extreme weather events as they happen around the world (https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/)

Previous Projects: 

Climate and Health Pump-Priming Fund: Dengue forecasting workshop

Attributing Amazon Forest fires from Land-use Alteration and Meteorological Extremes (AFLAME)

Evaluating Extreme Rainfall in Eastern China (EERCH)

The Nature Conservancy/Oxford Martin School Climate Partnership

Forest Mortality, Economics, and Climate (FMEC)

Complex Systems Modelling

Professor Richard Clayton's main research interest is developing computational and image-based models of electrical activation in the heart. This activity includes developing models of individual patients, analysis of data recorded from patients, fitting models to observations, and high performance computing for solving computationally intensive models.

PhD Supervision

Professor Clayton is particularly interested in hearing from research students interested in the following areas:

• Using machine learning to calibrate models of individual patients.
• Digital twins for medicine.
• Reduced order models of complex systems.
• Sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of cardiac models.

Research interests

Thomas' research interests cover many areas in natural language processing, speech, audio and multimedia technology, machine learning, and complex system optimisation and design.

His interests include: large vocabulary continuous speech recognition, non-linear methods in speech processing, low bit-rate speech coding, machine learning, multi-modal systems, image classification, microphone arrays, system and resource optimisation.

Research interests

Mark's research centres on the high resolution characterisation of microstructures, in particular interfaces and surfaces. His research programmes are broadly based and cover metals, ceramics and coatings:

• Aberration corrected electron microscopy to determine atomic structure and local bonding state, particularly at interfaces in, for example, nanoscale multilayer coatings or functional ceramics
• Understanding the dynamic microstructural changes that occur as a result of frictional contact, to thereby develop superior materials, for example, next generation hip arthroplasties
• Surface degeneration phenomena, such as oxidation of metals (including during hot rolling) and hydrothermal degradation of zirconia ceramics
• Microstructural evolution during the processing of metals, particularly Ti, Mg and steels, aimed at developing new higher strength materials
• Designing alloys for resource efficiency

Methods and Instruments

• Within and beyond trial health-economic modelling
• Patient reported outcome and experience measures - Symptom burden, quality of life (utilities), mapping to the EQ5D
• Observational data, secondary use of data and data linkage for epidemiology and comparative effectiveness
• Statistical methods to reduced confounding - Instrumental variables, marginal structural models, G-methods and treatment switching
• Discrete choice experiments
• Systematic review and meta-analysis

Topics

• Health Technology Assessment
• The two-day break in three times as week haemodialysis
• The health economics surrounding renal replacement therapy - In centre haemodialysis (range of formats and settings including intensive frequency/duration and minimal care), peritoneal dialysis, home haemodialysis and transplantation
• Patient centred care, decision making and research prioritisation

Speech and Hearing

Professor Heidi Christensen is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Sheffield. Her research interests are on the application of AI-based voice technologies to healthcare. In particular, the detection and monitoring of people’s physical and mental health including verbal and non-verbal traits for expressions of emotion, anxiety, depression and neurodegenerative conditions in e.g., therapeutic or diagnostic settings.

PhD Supervison

Professor Christensen is particularly interested in hearing from research students interested in the following areas:

• AI-based voice technologies in healthcare
• Detection and monitoring of people's physical and mental health

My principle research foci are (1) Impacts of urban form on environmental performance of buildings, neighbourhoods, and cities in current and future climate; and (2) Planning and design of enviromantal policies and strategies towards net-zero buildings, neighbourhoods, and cities.

The original contributions to knowledge are sought in achieving Explainable metamodels for evaluating indoor air quality of institutional building stocks; Impact of urban form on air quality and community solar micro-grid potential; Built characteristics and building operations prone to substandard indoor air quality and thermal comfort in residential homes under present and future climate. I lead the Bioclimatic Planning and Design Research (BPDR) Unit based at the School of Architecture.

I am a lecturer of Fluid Mechanics in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sheffield. Prior to this, I was an ISTplus Fellow in the Nonlinear Dynamics & Turbulence group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria and a PDRA in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Sheffield.

I hold a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Sheffield, jointly with the A*Star Institute of High Performance Computing in Singapore. I obtained my Bachelor and Master degrees in Marine Engineering & Naval Architecture from the University of Genoa, Italy.

Professor of Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Research interests

• Facility Location Problems: models, methods, applications
• Applications of Spatial Interaction theory
• Multi-Criteria Decision Making problems
• Decision Support Models for Logistics Problems
• Green logistics and low carbon innovation for Supply Chains

Research Interests

• Comparative constitutional law and politics, with a focus on constitutional jurisdictions
• Theories and models of judicial decision-making
• European legal/judicial integration
• Configurational analysis
• Historic Memory

Areas of Research Supervision

• Comparative constitutional law and politics
• Spanish constitutional law and politics
• Comparative constitutional jurisdictions
• Theories of judicial decision-making
• European legal/judicial integration

His research focuses on elections and voting, with particular emphasis on the role of context in voters' and parties' decision-making. He has published widely on electoral systems, political campaigning, economic voting, the neighbourhood effect, and political participation.

Research interests

• My research interests are discrete event simulation, individual patient modelling and mathematical modelling in the field of health technology assessment and cost-effectiveness

Research Interests

Lecturer in Business Analytics and Technology Management

Su Jung's research focuses on innovation and intellectual property management, with a particular interest in the context of open innovation, industrial dynamics of AI, and climate change. She is also broadly interested in developing frameworks and measures to support decision-making in relation to innovation management and policy, leveraging various analytics approaches including patent analytics, bibliometrics, and agent-based simulation.

Matthew's research is in public economics and behavioural economics. He focuses on four inter-related areas: understanding the determinants of tax compliance, the link between economic quantities and subjective happiness, explaining decision-making under risk with models of behavioural economics, and designing voting systems for international institutions. Currently he is exploring the role of social networks on compliance behaviour, the role of relative income in the utility function, and the reform of the UN Security Council.

Matthew supervises PhD students interested in microeconomic theory and behavioural economics.

Research Interests:

• Sewer Process Modelling
• Hydrogen Sulphide Induced Corrosion
• Microbial Ecology in Urban Water Systems
• Synthetic Biology
• Odour Problems

Research interests:

My research focuses on modelling population and community dynamics. I am particularly interested in large scale population dynamics, although have a range of interests, including:

• Plant population ecology, modelling plant populations, modelling weed populations.
• Evolutionary ecology, phylogenetic comparative methodology and its application to ecological problems.
• Theoretical ecology, statistical methodology

Research interests

• 6G/5G radio access technologies
• Building wireless performance modelling, evaluation and optimisation
• Modelling and design of smart built environments for wireless communications, e.g., intelligent reflecting surfaces
• Deep neural networks and machine learning for radio propagation modelling
• Data-driven proactive network optimisation
• Interactions between wireless communications and artificial intelligence (e.g., deep neural networks)
• Millimetre wave communications in the built environments

I have been teaching and researching issues relating to health law and ethics, and family law (particularly relating to children) for over 20 years and I am passionate about these subjects. I have also taught Criminal Law, English Legal Systems/Legal Methods, and Gender and the Law.

Research interests

Health care law and ethics generally - specifically:

• Consent and Capacity
• Decision Making for the 'Vulnerable'
• Risk and Regulation
• Clinical Research Involving Human and Non-human Animals
• Developing and Emerging Biotechnologies (such as xenotransplantation)
• Reproduction and Reproductive Technologies
• Organ Donation and Transplantation
• Conscientious Objection

Family law:

• Parents, Parenthood and Reproductive Technologies
• Children and Health
• Children and Childhood

Senior Lecturer in Risk Management and Strategy

Research interests

My research focuses upon two broad, but overlapping areas, namely business risk and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). More particularly, these can be broken down into distinct research strands: the influence of corruption upon organisational strategic decision-making in multinational enterprises; organisational preparedness and business continuity practice; strategy practice in SMEs.

I am interested in supervising PhD students in the following areas:

• organisational risk and resilience
• business continuity management
• flood risk management
• corruption

• Identification of continuous- and discrete-time dynamic systems
• Nonlinear systems modelling
• Adaptive and optimal control in biological systems
• Neurorobotics
• Oculomotor plant dynamics
• Cerebellar function

Research interests

• Control – power systems
• Power electronics
• Embedded systems
• Energy storage and management
• Intelligent systems
• Telematics
• Optimisation and Modelling
• Evolutionary computing

Current research interests include:

• Machine learning for structural dynamics and Structural Health Monitoring
• Bayesian statistical modelling of structural systems
• Probabilistic nonlinear system identification
• Joint input/state/parameter identification

Research interests

• Novel permanent magnet machines including single and hybrid excited switched flux permanent magnet machines
• Design of novel switched reluctance machines and their drives including direct torque control and hybrid current control
• Fault tolerance, fault modelling and diagnostics (inter-turn and phase shirt-circuit) of permanent magnet machines
• Thermal modelling of electrical machines
• Renewable energy and low emission transportation including wind power, electrical/hybrid vehicles, more electrical aircraft

Research interests:

The human global population is predicted to reach 9 billion by 2050 and managing landscapes to provide the food, water, fuel, housing and other resources required by this growing population, whilst protecting the ecosystems that provide them, is a major challenge. My research addresses this challenge and is concerned with understanding the impact of anthropogenic activities on freshwater ecosystems and their catchments. A major research aim is to gain a mechanistic understanding of key ecosystem services and the ecological processes that underpin them, and to investigate how they are affected by anthropogenic inputs and activities. The output from this research is used to inform environmental decision making and to influence policy development and implementation. Current research topics include:

• Ecological risk assessment of chemicals
• Chemical risk and climate change
• Ecosystem services and environmental stressors
• Agriculture, biodiversity and ecosystem services
• Environmental plastics
• Spatial variation in vulnerability to chemical risk

Research Interests

My interests lie primarily in undertaking evidence reviews of complex interventions, specifically in service delivery areas and in the identification of evidence for reviews. I have led a variety of different reviews for organisations including the HS&DR Evidence Synthesis Centre, the What Works Centre for Wellbeing and the ScHARR Public Health Collaborating Centre and have been involved in a number of publications from this work. I have also published on methods relating to searching. From my prior research projects, I maintain an interest in health services research with a particular interest in information use by patients and carers. I obtained my PhD in 2005 from the University Of Sheffield. It examined the impact of the MMR vaccine scare on parents in terms of their decision making and information requirements.

Research interests

Dr Fletcher's research interests are in solid mechanics, engineering design and in performance of materials. A large proportion of his work has application in the railway sector, and combines experimental and modelling approaches. Major themes include:

• Railway rail-wheel interface understanding & improvement (contact mechanics, adhesion, wear, fatigue crack growth, application of new materials, thermal damage. Input to traction control systems to maximise performance without infrastructure damage)
• Rail overhead line modelling and experimental investigation from a mechanical perspective (wear, fatigue crack growth, materials choices)
• Application of fracture mechanics and boundary element modelling to crack growth prevention/understanding
• Tribology (lubrication, wear)
• Modelling to optimise rail network traffic for reduced energy use, optimisation of energy storage, and greater network resilience (the algorithms and technology behind Driver Advisory Systems)
• Railway system security: modelling blast from energetic materials, and the response of surrounding environment, e.g. railway station and vehicles (fluid structure interactions)
• Rail system design for safety and security (environmental resilience, behaviour of materials under rapid and extreme loadings)

Research interests

• Cognition and communication across the menopause.
• Ovarian hormone effects on speech, language, and cognition.
• Equality, diversity, and inclusion in women’s neurocognitive health.
• Sex differences and gender effects in cognitive development and ageing. 
• Cerebral asymmetries and interhemispheric relationships.
• Modelling mechanisms of neurocognitive plasticity.

The measurement of sulphur dioxide, using ultra violet cameras, and modelling via computational fluid dynamics and laboratory analogues of a variety of degassing modes from basaltic magmas, including: passive, strombolian, and lava fountaining.

Low-cost alternatives to previously expensive methods

Research interests

• Uncertainty in sewer sediment transport
• Uncertainty in integrated water quality modelling and the use of rainfall radar data
• Urban rainfall and energy balance in the urban water cycle and heat recovery from urban drainage systems.

Dr Wang's research interests include performance-driven design process, parametric modelling, geometry construction and optimisation, cloud-based computing for interactive/real-time building information visualisation, building information interoperation, automated sustainable evaluation.

Research Interests

My group uses the zebrafish as a model organism to study the development of the inner ear in the embryo and the genetic causes of deafness. We are interested in early patterning and evolution of otic structures, disease modelling and fluid regulation in the ear.

Read more (link to the Centre for Developmental and Biomedical Genetics)

Research interests

Professor Hui Long specialises in mechanics of materials, contact mechanics, structure integrity, structure dynamics, and Finite Element Analysis. Her current research of applications is centred on two broad areas, wind energy and metal forming technology.

In wind energy, the current research areas include:
-       Reliability & damage analysis of gears & bearings;
-       Drivetrain dynamic and transient load modelling;
-       Failure analysis using field recorded SCADA data.

In metal forming, the current research areas include:
−       Metal spinning process formability;
−       Incremental sheet forming for hard-to-deform metals;
−       Non-linear finite element analysis and modelling.

Research interests

Smart fluids

• Modelling and design of smart fluid dampers
• Control and stability of smart fluid dampers
• Commercialisation of smart fluid dampers for consumer and industrial applications
• Research projects include the ADLAND project

Machining vibration:

• Methods for predicting and preventing chatter in high speed machining
• Active and passive vibration control during machining
• Research projects include the EPSRC research grants on chatter avoidance, and process damping

Uncertainty propagation:

• The role of uncertainty in structural dynamics problems
• Propagation techniques
• Application to smart materials and machining problems
• Application to modelling and design of energy harvesting systems
• Research funded by the EPSRC platform grant on Uncertainty Propagation in Structures, Systems and Processes

Research interests

Dr Chen’s research interests are in China’s urbanisation and rural-to-urban migration. China is experiencing the largest migration wave in human history, with hundreds of millions of people moving from the countryside to cities to seek better life. She is interested in the social, economic, spatial and environmental consequences of such massive urbanisation.

She is currently working on the following projects:

ESRC/CASS Urban Transformations: Urban Development, Migration, Segregation and Inequality (2015--2018). This project aims to bring together researchers from the University of Glasgow, University of Sheffield and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, to develop new ideas, innovative methods and analysis on the impacts of migration on urban development, the related social-spatial segregation and public policy challenges.

ESRC/GCRF: Dynamics of Health & Environmental Inequalities in Hebei Province, China (2017–2018). This project aims to develop the data infrastructure and to examine the social and health impacts of rapid urbanisation and air pollution, in order to improve decision support tools for economic and social policy.

She is also interested in rural-to-urban migrants and their life prospects. Her previous projects examined the aspirations and socio-economic integration of new-generation migrants in urban China.

She welcomes applications from prospective PhD students in the fields of urbanisation, migration, urban development and housing.

Research interests

Dr Barthorpe's research covers a range of problems in the field of structural dynamics and beyond, with an underlying theme being the integration of numerical modelling and experimental data. Structural health monitoring is one of his major research themes. The broad aim of an SHM system is to be able to identify, at an early stage, occurrences of damage that may ultimately lead to the failure of the component or system being monitored.

Established approaches to this task typically fall into one of two categories: they are either based entirely on experimental data, or make use of a numerical model that is periodically updated as new data becomes available. Both of these approaches have distinct drawbacks: for the former, lack of appropriate experimental data is the major issue; for the latter, model-form uncertainty is among the challenges faced.

Part of Rob's work is in investigating ways to circumvent the lack of data problem through novel experimental and data-modelling techniques. A larger part is in developing new methods for integrating experimental and numerical methods, such that uncertainty in both the experimental measurements and the numerical model may be accounted for.

These methods are being developed for application to aerospace structures, wind turbines and civil infrastructure. However, the domain of applicability is much broader as the issues of handling uncertainty, solving inverse problems and overcoming test-model discrepancy are pervasive in many branches of science and engineering. Applications being investigated include the energy performance of buildings and the modelling of human bones.

Research interests

Prof. Boxall´s research interests are concerned with understanding and modelling hydraulic, water quality and infrastructure performance throughout the natural and urban environment. His research interests are multi-disciplinary and have a number of cross cutting themes that include research in full-scale live systems, pilot and laboratory systems, with the application of theoretical, computational and analytical approaches, including software development. Specific themes include:

• The monitoring, modelling, operation and management of potable water distribution systems for both quantity, with an emphasis on leakage, and quality encompassing physical, biological and chemical changes and interactions
• The dynamics and impacts of pollutants in open channel systems
• The hydraulic and pollution performance of urban drainage systems
• Application of ICT for data collection from disparate urban water systems, together with computation (soft computing) techniques to turn data to information to knowledge
• Asset management and whole life costs, including energy and carbon, associated with water distribution and sewer systems

Lin’s research is in the field of future clean and sustainable energy technologies with a focus on multi-scale process computational and CFD modelling. His active research areas include

• Carbon capture and storage from power generation processes, 
• Clean coal/biomass combustion for power generation and pollutants formation prediction,
• Fuel related ash deposition, slagging and fouling in power plant furnaces, 
• Future power plant multi-scale, dynamic and virtual reality simulation, 
• Wind turbine and wind farm aerodynamics,
• LES (Large Eddy Simulation) of atmospheric boundary layer flow for wind energy applications,
• Wind resources prediction for built environments,
• Fuel cells and anaerobic digestion processes modelling.

Research interests

Our research is involved with the synthesis and characterisation of oxide-based functional ceramics. The properties and applications of many functional ceramics depend on the close control of the crystal structure, composition, ceramic microstructure, dopants and dopant (or defect) distribution. Materials of well-defined composition are synthesised and characterised by a variety of diffraction, spectroscopic, microscopic, analytical and thermal techniques. The electrical properties are usually characterised by ac impedance spectroscopy, in preference to dc or conventional fixed-frequency measurements. This multi-technique approach is backed up with atomistic modelling (defect chemistry) and finite element modelling (electrical microstructure) to rationalise the composition-structure-property relationships in important functional ceramics which include dielectrics, solid electrolytes, mixed conductors and thermoelectrics.

Research Interests:

• Biomedical signal processing, machine learning and pattern recognition
• Statistical and adaptive signal processing, and mathematical modelling of bioelectric signals
• Neural and cognitive process, clinical applications, and understanding
• Brain–computer interface algorithms, systems, adaptation, and applications
• Robotic and BCI-based stroke rehabilitation
• Neuroprosthetic learning and control
• Medical system and device research and development

Keywords: Automatic Control and Systems Engineering

Research interests

In the mid-1980s Prof. Burgess began a very fruitful and enduring collaboration with Roger Plank (recently retired as Head of the Architecture Department at Sheffield) in developing numerical techniques for modelling of the behaviour of steel and composite elements in fire. A finite element approach developed progressively from 1990 as the emphasis gradually shifted from members in isolation towards the performance of whole steel and composite framed building structures and sub-frames. The current Vulcan software is capable of non-linear modelling of 3-dimensional composite buildings as temperature distributions develop through the cross-sections of both beam-columns and slabs. The series of full-scale fire tests on the multi-storey building at Cardington were a vital ingredient in the development of the software, and in understanding the complex interactions which take place in fire. Vulcan is still being developed by the research group, but a designers’ version with an interactive graphical interface is now marketed through a University spin-out company Vulcan Solutions Ltd. This is now being used in performance-based design of fire protection strategies by leading UK consultants, and was the winner of two British Computer Society national awards in 2005. The main thrust of the research remains in numerical modelling, but some very successful experimental work has been done at Sheffield in developing a component approach to connection modelling for fire conditions. The most important current theme of the research group, after the tragic events of 11 September 2001, concerns the robustness of connections in fire and the avoidance of progressive collapse of buildings in fire. The research has been funded mainly by the EPSRC, but has also attracted funding both from industry and other government agencies. So far the research programme on fire has 28 PhD and 3 MPhil graduates and has generated more than 250 publications.

Marco's research addresses mainly the development of computational models of the thermo-fluid dynamics of multiphase flows, with a specific focus on computational fluid dynamics and boiling flows. I am interested in nuclear thermal hydraulics and the prediction of boiling heat transfer, passive cooling and two-phase thermal hydraulic instabilities in reactor systems, and the fluid dynamics of bubbly flows in multiple devices. I currently hold an EPSRC Fellowship focused on the challenge of modelling multiple flow regimes and transition in gas-liquid flows.

My research interests combine computational modelling and cardiac imaging, in particular cardiac MRI. I am interested in developing personalised models of ischaemia that can be used to guide patient- specific treatment planning. I am currently investigating the relative contributions to ischaemia in patients with multi-morbidity using stress-perfusion cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and novel 4D flow quantification techniques.

Theo’s research focuses on sustainable data-driven manufacturing of inorganic materials, most notably cement and its precursors. He brings an approach based on thermochemistry and chemical reaction engineering principles and uses these skills to target emissions and waste reductions by revolutionising how we design and produce materials. Topics covered include:

• Developing novel and sustainable cement/clinker formulations and production processes
• Material circularisation, waste valorisation, and industrial symbiosis
• Materials decarbonisation
• Carbon dioxide mineralisation and utilisation
• Process optimisation and modelling

My practice-research interests focus around situated speculative and critical design, participation, co-design, prototyping, DIY design, care, the Anthropocene, design's intersection with actor-network theory (ANT), science and technology studies (STS), and speculative thought.

I am also interested in (and convinced by the value of) designing and researching through making and practice — to think through materials and their processes by experimenting, modelling and prototyping, as well as utilising photo and video methods.

My research interests focus on understanding the structure of the urban housing market and specifically exploring the relative merits of different approaches to capturing neighbourhood segmentation within house price models by using quantitative methods. My research adopts a variety of econometric methods to the analysis of property markets by investigating the effectiveness of different modelling techniques at capturing housing market segmentation. I am also interested in the structure and operation of real estate markets particularly from investor's and developer's perspective. 

Research interests

• Power semiconductor devices and technologies
• High temperature Power Electronics
• Active Gate Drive technologies
• High Power Density Converters
• Power Integrated Circuits for Lighting, Automotive and Switched Mode Power Supplies
• High Voltage thin film transistors & integration aspects
• Modelling of power semiconductor devices & technologies
• New concepts for semiconductor devices & technologies
• Power Semiconductor devices & technologies for harsh environments
• Wide Band gap Power Semiconductor devices and technologies
• Nano technologies for Power Electronic Applications

Panos’ research interests lie in the broad field of labour economics.

His work focuses on labour markets characterised by trading frictions. Using both applied theory and applied econometrics, often combined into structural modelling, Panos has examined a range of specific research questions, including the determinants of native-migrant wage differentials, the impact of the minimum wage on labour market outcomes, and the patterns of worker reallocation across firms and local labour markets.

Panos is interested in supervising PhD students in labour economics and applied econometrics.

Research interests

Dr Thornton's research experience covers contaminant hydrogeology, with particular interests in the application and performance assessment of natural attenuation for pollution management, laboratory and field studies of biodegradation of organic contaminants in groundwater, the transport and fate of pollutants in dual porosity aquifers, geochemical reactive transport modelling, groundwater impacts from landfills, attenuation of landfill leachate in clay liners, aquifers and the design of reactive barriers for landfills, and hydrogeological processes and solute transport across the groundwater-surface water interface.

Research interests

Much of my early research centred on social care for older people, though it also extended to other aspects of community and health care services and their impact on the lives of service users and carers. More recently, I have focussed on issues of representation in later life, looking at the construction and framing of ageing and care-giving. I draw from a mix of anthropological, social policy, sociological, social gerontological, and feminist perspectives and approaches and the intersection of gender and age has been a key focus of my work. My interests include social and cultural dimensions of ageing, intergenerational relations and informal or family care relationships, which I have explored predominantly through qualitative methods, including interviews, focus groups, observation (participant and non-participant), ethnography, life stories and more recently visual approaches. I recognise the importance of `user involvement´ and interdisciplinarity in research and am committed, in particular, to the development of participatory research, raising questions about how we come to know what we know about the lives of people who use services and the connection of this knowledge with policy and practice.

I have recently completed 2 major research projects:

The social process of everyday decision-making by people with dementia and their spouses, an ESRC-funded study carried out with Dr Geraldine Boyle (PI) which aimed to explore and raise awareness of the decision-making abilities of people with dementia. 

Representing Self – Representing Ageing,  part of the cross disciplinary New Dynamics of Ageing Programme: http://www.newdynamics.group.shef.ac.uk/ and which I carried out, as PI, with Professors Merryn Gott and Susan Hogan. Known more familiarly by the title of Look at Me! Images of Women and Ageing, the project worked with women in Sheffield to explore representations of women and ageing in the media and to produce new images to challenge existing stereotypes: http://www.representing-ageing.com/. I won an ESRC Outstanding Impact in Society Award for the project in 2014 and am continuing to extend the project's impact through activities including intergenerational work in schools.

My other research activities have included:

The ESRC Older Women’s Lives and Voices project, exploring issues affecting the quality of life of older women across different ethnic groups within Sheffield and their involvement in services available to them:

The European Commission funded MERI project (Mapping Existing Research and Identifying Knowledge Gaps Concerning the Situation of Older Women in Europe), a collaborative project involving 13 EC countries and designed to contribute to the development of European studies and policy to improve older women’s lives.

Postgraduate Supervision

I have supervised 9 students to successful completion at PhD (x 8) and MPhil (x 1) levels. I am currently primary supervisor of 1 full-time and 5 part-time PhD students, including a joint location student (Trinidad and Tobago). I welcome applications to study full-time or part-time with me for MPhil or PhD research degrees that are related to my activities and experience. I would be particularly interested in hearing from students who wish to undertake participatory research with older people and carers.

Research interests

Roger's research interests are split into three areas: solving industrial wear problems; application and development of a novel ultrasonic technique for machine element contact analysis and design of engineering components and machines. The research themes are wide ranging, but the main focus is on:

Railway Engineering

• Wheel/rail contact tribology – including wear (wheel profile evolution), RCF, friction management (use of top of rail friction modifiers; grease lubrication and traction gels), isolation and links to effective train detection
• Rail infrastructure improvement – including laser cladding of rail to reduce wear/RCF; design and testing of insulated rail joints; overhead line wear testing
• Condition monitoring – including real-time measurement of the wheel/rail contact; force measurement and detection of loosening in bolted joints.

Human Interactions

• Fundamental characterization and modelling of skin friction including use of OCT to determine sub-surface skin strain
• Hand/object interactions – including kitchen equipment, sports equipment etc. and effects that wearing medical examination gloves has on dexterity, grip and tactile discrimination
• Human tissue interaction with medical devices including catheters
• Pedestrian slips and falls, particularly barefoot slips and characterisation of flooring performance
• Multi-scale modelling of skin to incorporate effects of moisture and temperature to optimise design of medical products that interface with skin.

Research interests:

• Limit analysis in geotechnics: development of new numerical and analytical tools, including development of a  new numerical technique Discontinuity Layout Optimization (DLO) for solution of plasticity problems and its application in a range of areas including offshore and unsaturated soils.
• Masonry arch bridge analysis, modelling and assessment, including the development of a full scale plane strain testing tank for soil structure interaction in masonry arch bridges in collaboration with the University of Salford.
• Design code development focusing on theory and application of design codes using numerical methods and Eurocode 7.
• Unsaturated soil-structure interaction. Soil physics, soil-biology interaction and micromechanics.

The experimental work has a strong basis in physical modelling, supported in particular by innovative digital imaging techniques.  Whilst at Sheffield his research has been funded by EPSRC, NERC and industry.

He is co-founder of a University spin-out company LimitState Ltd. The company specialises in the development of novel ultimate limit state analysis and design software applications which make use of research methods developed in the University, including LimitState:GEO, a rapid tool for geotechnical limit analysis in use in industry and universities in over 30 countries across the world.

Nathan supervises PhDs in issues related to youth and young adults, crime and criminalisation, and childhood neurodevelopmental disability.

His research is at the interface between social policy, criminology and developmental sciences. It considers the explanations for patterns of offending apparent in emerging understandings of typical and atypical adolescent neuromaturation, and their implications for policy and practice. His work is uniquely interdisciplinary within his field, drawing on developmental psychopathology and adolescent developmental science to support biosocial modelling of patterns of offending and desistance, and applying this to a critical analysis of criminal justice practices and interventions. In particular, he focuses on practices and interventions that discriminate against and criminalise young people as a result of neurodevelopmental disability, and those that engage young adult offenders.

• Numerical modelling of wall motion in cardiovascular applications
• Image-based computational vascular haemodynamics
• Minimally invasive image-based interventional planning and guidance
• Influence of haemodynamics on cardiovascular disease
• Influence of lifestyle on haemodynamics and cardiovascular disease
• Fluid structure interaction and flow-induced oscillations in elastic vessels

Research interests

Dr Shucksmith's primary research focus is the physical processes that drive water quality transformations within urban drainage and surface water environments. This includes developing techniques for understanding and mitigating the likely pressures on water management caused by climate change, population growth and asset deterioration. His work ranges from experimental based research into solute mixing processes within open channels, vegetated flows and urban flood waters to more applied work in collaboration with industry on integrated water quality modelling and real time control systems. In collaboration with colleagues James also works in fields such as eco-hydraulics, urban flooding and sustainable urban drainage systems.

Research interests

My research focus is the physics and engineering and clinical applications of MR imaging of hyperpolarised gases (³He and ¹²⁹Xe) and protons in the lungs and pulmonary vasculature.

Physics and engineering projects include:

• rapid acquisition methods for imaging of inhaled hyperpolarised gases using compressed sensing, steady state free precession and parallel imaging.
• Techniques for simultaneous imaging of ¹H, ³He and ¹²⁹Xe in the lungs.
• RF coil hardware engineering for ³He and ¹²⁹Xe lung MRI.
• ³He and ¹²⁹Xe MRI at different magnetic field strengths.
• Spin exchange optical pumping physics for polarisation of ³He and ¹²⁹Xe.
• Measuring and modelling gas flow and diffusion in the lungs; physiological models of alveolar geometry and gas exchange.

I undertake research into a wide range of problems that involve fluid mechanics. I have successfully supervised many Phd students - please get in touch if you are interested in doing a Phd!

Engineering Fluid Dynamics

My research interests are motivated by the desire to better understand the behaviour of fluids in order to make advances in practical engineering systems. My work involves collaborations with engineering industrial partners, as well as with colleagues from the Faculty of Engineering here at Sheffield. I am particularly interested in micro-bubble mediated flows - this refers to flows where the injection of a stream of small micro-bubbles significantly improves transfer rates. This has applications to a wide range of applications, including distillation and water purification.

Rheology

Rheology is the field of scientific research that investigates "how a fluid flows". I am particularly interested in fluids that don't follow the standard rules of Newtonian fluids. Such fluids are called complex or non-Newtonian fluids. My work in this area has involved experiments, asymptotic analysis and CFD modelling. 

Microfluidics for Biotechnology

My research focuses on the solution of inverse problems that arise in the sensing and control of lab-on-a-chip chemical analysis and chemical microreactor applications, and path-lab-on-a-chip biomedical analysis. The work involves modelling flow in microchannels and is carried out in collaboration with the Microfluidics Group from the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Sheffield. 

Meteorology

My work involves modelling of the stably stratified atmospheric boundary layer and the analysis of meteorological observations. The Earth's boundary layer supports varied and complex waveforms, from internal gravity waves to turbulent eddies. I am particularly interested in large amplitude, solitary waves. In recent years this work has involved collaborations with the British Antarctic Survey, Meteorological Office and the Complutense University of Madrid.

Dr Ruoyang Yuan has a strong research interest in advanced optical diagnostics, fluid machinery and fluid mechanics, turbulent combustion, heat transfer, multiphase flows and with gas turbine application and internal combustion engines.  

Dr Yuan currently holds a David Clarke Fellowship, focusing on low-carbon energy conversion and propulsion technologies through utilisation of biofuels. 

Previously she was a researcher in the Thermal & Aerodynamic Systems Engineering (TASE), Jaguar Land Rover, working on thermal management modelling and energy optimisation for hybrid powertrains. She also worked on endoscopic optical diagnostics for in-cylinder combustion and emission analysis, funded by the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) in collaboration with Caterpillar Inc. to aid the design of low emission diesel engines. 

Dr Yuan’s research activities includes optical diagnostics such as particle image velocimetry (PIV), phase doppler anemometry (PDA), planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF), Raman scattering, Mie scattering, laser extinction and laser induced incandescence (LII), laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), endoscopic multi-colour pyrometer, chemiluminescence, multicolour soot pyrometry and numerical modelling using Computer-aided engineering (CAE), computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in heat transfer, laminar/turbulent reacting flow, COSILAB and CHEMKIN for chemical reaction simulation, Powerflow/Powertherm for flow and heat transfer, GT-SUITE for vehicle/powertrain modelling.

Over the past decade Sam has spent his time investigating the role of soil in blast events. He works on the fundamental physics that govern the interaction between soil, air and explosive charges. Soil is a variable material; unlike steel, its behaviour is not easy to predict. Understanding the fundamentals enables Sam to make accurate predictions of what the effects of a blast in a particular environment would be. Understanding the impact of blast on soil, buildings, transport and communication networks can contribute to the design of infrastructure that is more resilient to terrorism. Sam’s work also helps to protect troops, vehicles and structures in warzones.

Research interests

His main research interests focus on:

• The role of soil in explosive events
• Mitigating the damaging effects of explosive detonations
• Numerical modelling of geotechnical problems
• Development of advanced constitutive models for soils
• Quantification of rate effects is soils (with Dr Barr)

Research interests

Impact Ionisation

• Experimental study of impact ionisation, avalanche multiplication and breakdown in a wide range of materials and structures.
• Theoretical modelling into hot carrier behaviour and the impact ionisation process.

Photodiodes and Avalanche Photodiodes

• Characterisation of a range of photodiodes and avalanche photodiodes (APDs), covering the wavelength range from the UV to the LWIR. Materials studied include SiC, Si and most III-V alloys including AlInP, InAs, InP, AlGaAs and InGaAs.
• Investigation into structures such as MQWs, Type II superlattices and QDIPs for advanced detectors in the MWIR and LWIR.
• Development of single photon detectors (SPADs) in the near-IR.
• Novel circuit design and development for enabling low excess noise measurements and quenching circuits for the SPADs.

Bismuth containing alloys

• Growth and characterisation of GaAsBi and InAsBi by MBE.
• Development of bulk and MQW diodes of GaAsBi, InAsBi for a range of opto-electronic devices such as solar cells, IR-photodiodes and lasers.

Research Interests

My main research interests lie in applied micro-econometrics and health. I am interested in applying advanced quantitative techniques to large datasets to explore obesity.  I am particularly interested in obesity across different stages of life and how and why obesity prevalence changes over time, by age and across different generations.  My previous research has included a range of quantitative methods including factor analysis, structural equation modelling, growth models and mixture models as well as methods for dealing with missing data.  I am also interested in methods development in related research areas.

Current and recent research includes the estimation of:

• BMI trajectories in older adults (including novel methods to account for missing data)
• obesity and overweight trends in England
• trends in weight-to-height ratio and associated risk in England
• obesity trends in Ghanaian women
• the impact of weight change on EQ-5D-3L

Research interests

His research centres on the development, characterisation and exploitation of advanced and non-traditional cement and concrete technology. Many projects involve alkali-activated and geopolymer binders, for use in construction, infrastructure and waste immobilisation applications. The range of topics covered include:-

• Construction materials synthesis and testing
  1. Geopolymers – chemical and engineering properties
  2. Chemistry of alkali aluminosilicate gels
  3. Interactions with the environment (durability, fire testing)
  4. Other alkali-activated and Portland cement-hybrid concrete systems
  5. Rheology control
• Waste immobilisation
  1. Nuclear wastes
  2. Heavy metals
• Silica chemistry in complex aqueous environments
  1. Speciation and electrolyte solution chemistry
• Hydrometallurgy
  1. Application of reaction engineering techniques
  2. Interactions involving silica (aqueous and surfaces) and gold
• Ion exchange equilibrium modelling

My research focuses on fracture mechanics aspects of structural integrity, encompassing crack growth mechanisms such as fatigue and creep, as well as brittle and ductile fracture. My research combines experimental techniques with numerical modelling and I have experience of a wide variety of finite element analysis software packages including, ABAQUS, DYNA, NASTAN and PATRAN.

I have developed improved methods of accurately measuring crack initiation and growth in ductile materials and in hostile environments. These methods, based on the electrical potential drop technique, facilitate improved material models that enable the continued safe operation of structures, avoiding premature maintenance and decomissioning programmes. This provides potentially huge social, environmental and economic benefits to variety of industries, e.g. power generation.  The ASTM standards on fracture toughness testing (E1820) and creep crack growth testing (E1457) have been revied to incorporate this research.

• Energy efficient generation of microbubbles and their applications (particularly biofuels and bioreactors).
• Plasma microreactors, especially low power consumption generation of ozone.
• Fluid dynamics of helical turbulence and mixing.
• Thin film dynamics and microrheometry.
• Computational modelling with inverse methods.

Perlemax Ltd, a University spinout company, was founded to exploit his research and technological advances. Perlemax and Zimmerman have won the below awards and recognition:

• 2009 IChemE Moulton Medal
• 2010 Royal Society Innovation Award (Brian Mercer Fund) (Video)
• 2010 CleanTech Open, AXA UK Global Ideas Champion
• 2010 CleanTech Open, International Finalist, Global Ideas
• 2011 Zayed International Future Energy Prize, Semifinalist

My research strategy is centred on understanding the science behind industrial granulation processes allowing formulators to design processes, which deliver better products for consumers. This approach is based on linking the early stage of the granulation process with new equipment design through novel computational modelling and on-line monitoring systems.

I had collaborative projects with world-leading brands in the area of particle processing and equipment manufacturers such as Nestlé, AstraZeneca, GSK, BASF, Johnson Matthey, Procter & Gamble, Unilever,Alexanderwerk, ICL and Aramco.

Throughout my career journey in research, I have established a comprehensive understanding of the particle product development process which is used to create successful novels for both process and product optimisation.

My current research is mainly focused on Improving physical stability of food powders using novel approaches of powder restructuring which involve a large variety of powder processing technologies including inhomogeneous crystallisation, spray-drying, roller compaction, and freeze- drying; knowledge gained can be also applied to improve the stability performance of a wide range of catalyst and fertiliser products. Our projects with the pharmaceutical industry mainly aim at improving the quality of the oral dosage form products produced by continuous manufacturing technology and the research includes both experimental and modelling techniques.

My research with the oil industry is focusing on reducing the aggregation and deposition of calcium carbonate in different petroleum facilities and equipment. We are also looking into increasing the life of the catalyst by measuring the adhesion strength of different layers forming the catalyst.

Our research in the fertilizer industry is mainly aiming to increase the stability of fertilizer granules and hence have more control of the quality which could be used to increase the efficiency of the fertilizers.

Surabhi works on law and sexuality with a focus on India. She is interested in exploring the social afterlife of legal judgments and the lived experiences of legal institutions. Her work has recently been cited in the Indian Supreme Court’s judicial training manual on LGBTQIA+ issues for magistrates, judges, and judicial staff. For the last six years she has been blogging on SOGI cases in Indian courts, providing quick and crisp summaries of the latest adventures of law in queer life: www.lawandsexuality.com

Surabhi likes to explore artistic ways of demonstrating her research so that it reaches the intended audience. In 2014 she conducted a year-long study on the experiences of gender non-conforming students in Indian schools through a IASSCS Emerging Scholars’ Fellowship. With the aid of animation, short stories, model school policies, and a customised website, she has made the findings and further resources available for parents, teachers, and school students so that bullying can come to an end. This project has since won the Jack Collins Social Action Bursary of the Oriel College Oxford which helped her conduct school visits in her hometown to discuss her findings.  The website can be found here: https://genderdiversityinschools.com/

At Sheffield, she has launched the Lectures on Gender and Sexuality in the winter of 2023 with the aim of informing public debate through research. The series invites contemporary scholars working on questions of sexuality and gender to Sheffield to share their latest research on cutting-edge topics with the staff, students, and the members of the public at large. Information on past lectures is here: past lectures

She also has a sustained interest in traditional constitutional law in which she completed her doctorate. Her doctoral dissertation looked at the prevalence of religious and cultural claims at the frontiers of fundamental rights—same-sex marriage, euthanasia, surrogacy, sex-work and so on. In short, those human rights cases which are not right to religion cases but somehow always attract passionate religious and cultural contestations. The thesis examines these arguments, studies their attributes, and asks to what extent is it constitutionally legitimate for courts to take them into consideration when arriving at a decision. This work is currently being revised for publication. Correspondence for discussions, including access to the thesis, is very welcome.

She is committed to working with the queer communities and in that regard has had the opportunity to work with the ACLU, The Williams Institute, and The Centre for Justice, Law and Society (CJLS) at the Jindal University in India. Before coming to the UK in 2016, she was an Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of the CJLS at Jindal and worked at the Indian Supreme Court and Jagori, the latter one of the oldest women’s rights NGOs in India. Before coming over to Sheffield, she was a lecturer at the Manchester Metropolitan University between 2021 and 2022 and taught as a Senior Teaching Fellow at SOAS from 2021-2023.

She invites robust research proposals for PhD supervisions in any of the areas mentioned above.

Research interests 

• Constitutional Law and Theory
• Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Laws
• Secularism
• Critical Approaches to Law

Research interests

Elisabeth’s fundamental research interest lies in understanding the micro-mechanisms of geomaterials undergoing deformation, that lead to the behaviour that we observe at the macro-scale. This has led to her current research into the following topics:

• Creep of granular soils leading to observed ageing effects (as exhibited as increases in strength with time of freshly deposited sands, as displacement pile “set up” in granular soils, and as an increased resistance of older deposits to seismically-induced liquefaction)
• Mechanisms behind the extraordinary spreading of large (>10⁶ m³) and catastrophic rock avalanches
• Mechanics of the motion of debris flows with a view to better modelling of their runout behaviour
• Behaviour of granular flows within geotechnical centrifuge physical model experiments (influences of Coriolis and other induced effects)
• Internal erosion of susceptible soils (such as glacial tills), which may lead to internal instability in embankment dams, levees and canals
• Local deformation modes of model geosynthetic reinforced soil walls under seismic loading

Research interests

My research focus is osteoporosis. The University of Sheffield is well regarded for its contribution to the study of osteoporosis.  According to Thomson Reuter's Science Watch, we are ranked fourth among academic centres in the world for citations in osteoporosis, and first in the UK and Europe http://sciencewatch.com/ana/st/osteo2/institution/.  I study the epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of the disease. This has involved developing and establishing assays for bone turnover markers and studying their clinical utility. I have developed new approaches to the definition of vertebral fracture and applied new approaches such as vertebral fracture assessment. I have developed tools to evaluate bone strength such as high-resolution quantitative computed tomography, ultrasound and finite element modelling of bone strength. I have evaluated the endocrine changes in osteoporosis to better understand its causes. I have designed and conducted clinical trials of nutrition and drugs for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis. I have evaluated approaches to enhance compliance with treatment.

I am the Pulmonary Hypertension Research Theme lead on the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Respiratory Medicine Research Executive and lead the Pulmonary Hypertension Clinical Phenotype and Bioresource stream of the Sheffield Pulmonary Hypertension Research Network, where I collaborate closely with Jim Wild and Andrew Swift (Imaging), Allan Lawrie (Pre-clinical models and drug discovery) and my clinical colleagues in pulmonary hypertension Charlie Elliot, Robin Condliffe, Ian Sabore and Thanos Charalampopoulos. My research is primarily focused on the assessment and classification of pulmonary hypertension and the use of multimodality imaging. I am particularly interested in the use of imaging modalities to understand more about pulmonary vascular disease and I am collaborating with colleagues to understand more about pulmonary vascular disease using modelling and using an in silico approach (Insigneo). I have participated in multiple randomized controlled trials in pulmonary hypertension leading to the licensing of new treatments and have helped translate new imaging techniques into routine clinical practice. I currently participate in a number of research studies funded by the NIHR, MRC and BHF and am part of a UK collaboration characterizing genes and biomarkers in patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Research interests

His research involves the microstructural evolution (utilising experimental techniques together with modelling techniques), and the subsequent development of mechanical properties, during the thermomechanical processing of both ferrous and nonferrous alloys. In his research, a wide range of mechanical tests are employed, including laboratory simulations of industrial metalworking processes (e.g., rolling, forging, extrusion etc.). Additionally, this research relies upon the quantitative characterisation of microstructure using a number of different techniques including light, scanning and transmission electron microscopy. This work has led to empirical relationships between deformation processing parameters (e.g., temperature, strain, strain rate and interpass delay time) and the resultant microstructure for a given alloy composition. Although a number of alloy systems including aluminium alloys, metal matrix composites (MMCs), titanium aluminides and permanent magnetic materials have been studied, the focus is primarily on ferrous alloys such as stainless, microalloyed steels and associated model alloy steels. His work on the thermodynamic behaviour of NbC, and of its subsequent precipitation behaviour in microalloyed austenite has been recognised internationally, with the award of the Charles Hatchett Prize from the Institute of Materials (1995). He is particularly interested in developing a basic understanding between those softening (i.e., recovery, recrystallisation) and strengthening (i.e., solid solution, precipitation) mechanisms which occur either in austenite or in ferrite.

Research interests

My current research focuses on Urban Stormwater Management and Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS). I am specifically interested in the hydrological performance of SuDS and on strategic SuDS retrofitting. My work is aimed at understanding the processes that control the quantity and quality of urban runoff in order to develop fit-for-purpose models of those processes and generate novel strategies to enable stormwater to be managed more effectively/sustainably. The work embraces fundamental science (hydrology, hydrodynamics, soil science), and has strong practical relevance. I have a track record of monitoring and modelling green roof hydrological performace, with current projects focusing on bioretention cell design, dual-function rainwater harvesting systems and evapotranspiration rates from urban vegetation.

Other ongoing work focuses on the use of computational fluid dynamics to optimise the design of combined sewer overflows and other sewer ancillary structures. This requires both the flow field and pollutant transport (sediment or solute) to be accurately modelled, in three-dimensions and in response to time-dependent inputs. Recent work aimed to understand and model the effects of vegetation on flow and solute transport in vegetated stormwater ponds.

Research interests

Keith's research is concerned with applications of advanced signal processing and machine learning methods to structural dynamics. The primary application is in the aerospace industry, although there has also been interaction with ground transport and offshore industries.

One of the research themes concerns non-linear systems. The research conducted here is concerned with assessing the importance of non-linear modelling within a given context and formulating appropriate methods of analysis. The analysis of non-linear systems can range from the fairly pragmatic to the extremes of mathematical complexity. The emphasis within the research group here is on the pragmatic and every attempt is made to maintain contact with engineering necessity.

Another major activity within the research group concerns structural health monitoring for aerospace systems and structures. The research is concerned with developing automated systems for inspection and diagnosis, with a view to reducing the cost-of-ownership of these high integrity structures. The methods used are largely adapted from pattern recognition and machine learning; often the algorithms make use of biological concepts e.g. neural networks, genetic algorithms and ant-colony metaphors. The experimental approaches developed range from global inspection using vibration analysis to local monitoring using ultrasound.

Research interests

The common theme in my research is phase transitions in polymers. Most recently we have used the knowledge of the thermodynamics and kinetics of phase behaviour in polymer blends and block copolymers to develop new processing methods based on self-assembly. This has led to the development of the new field of Soft Nanotechnology where synthetic and natural macromolecules are harnessed in a way that makes use of their intrinsic flexibility and susceptibility to Brownian motion to generate work from changes on molecular conformation. Developments in polymers responsive to their environment have lead to research into molecular machines, specifically the fabrication of molecular valves and motors.

We do polymer synthesis in order to have well defined systems to study. The dynamics of phase behaviour are studied by calorimetry, spectroscopy, rheology, microscopy and light, X-ray or neutron scattering. A full suite of microstructural analysis (atomic force, optical and electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and mechanical testing) is used to confirm the dynamic experiments and where appropriate computer modelling is also used.

My main contribution to the field has been the development and application of the techniques of time-resolved structural tools to polymers. This work was the subject of prizes in 1990 by the Plastics and Rubber Institute, in 1992, 1999 and 2003 from the Royal Society of Chemistry and in 1999 from the Polymer Processing Society.

I have been active in promulgating the public understanding of science since my graduate student days. This culminated in my appointment as the Royal Institution Christmas Lecturer for 2002 where my theme was the science and technology of everyday things. The lectures were seen on Channel 4 by 4.5 million viewers and have also been broadcast in Europe, Japan and Korea. I was also the 1st EPSRC Senior Media Fellow to allow me to combine world-class research and popular understanding of the impact of science and technology on society. I was awarded an OBE in 2005 for "services to science".

My research involves reaction engineering: the design and optimisation of chemical/biochemical systems through consideration of catalytic reaction networks coupled with mass transport. The research combines experiments with kinetic modelling and has a wide range of applications such bio-reactors for fuel or food, materials formation or degradation, drug delivery and sensing.

I'm particularly interested in aqueous phase catalysis and control of dynamics in cellular biological or bioinspired chemical systems. Taking inspiration from nature or the use of natural components allows us to design functional materials and processes that are greener or more sustainable, but also harness the unique properties arising from feedback in natural systems including collective behaviour (e.g. quorum sensing in bacteria) and self-organisation.

Some current projects include:

• New methods for the bio-catalytic control of gelation for natural adhesives and repair with Prof Pojman (Louisianna State University).
• Enzyme loaded colloids or vesicles for biotechnology and healthcare applications with Dr Rossi (Salerno) and Dr Beales (Leeds).
• Self-organisation in precipitation processes with Prof’s Horvath and Toth (Szeged) and Prof Meldrum (Leeds).
• Bio-based and biodegradable materials: Optimising ester hydrolysis in polymers and lignocellulose processing for bioethanol production.
• Engineering applications of biomineralisation and biofilm formation with Dr Karunakaran and the SCARAB team (Sheffield).

COST Action on Emergence and Evolution in Complex Chemical Systems

Gordon Research Conference on Oscillations and Dynamic Instabilities in Chemical Systems

Research Interests

The Haynes group investigates mechanistic aspects of homogeneous transition metal catalysed reactions, particularly industrially important processes such as methanol carbonylation and alkene hydroformylation. Synthetic, spectroscopic, kinetic and computational methods are used to study the structure and reactivity of organometallic complexes and their roles in catalysis.

Mechanisms of rhodium and iridium catalysed methanol carbonylation

The catalytic carbonylation of methanol to acetic acid is one of the most significant industrial applications of homogeneous transition metal catalysis. We have a long-standing research collaboration with BP Chemicals, who operate methanol carbonylation plants worldwide, and introduced a new process(Cativa ^TM) in 1995 that uses a promoted iridium/iodide catalyst. Highlights of our mechanistic studies include the first spectroscopic detection of a highly reactive Rh-methyl intermediate in the rhodium-catalysed process[1] and elucidation of the role of promoters in the iridium-based system.[2] We recently showed that the rate of migratory CO insertion in [Ir(CO)₂I₃Me]^- is dramatically increased by isomerisation to place a CO ligand trans to methyl.[3]

Ligand effects on oxidative addition and migratory CO insertion
 We are interested in how the rates of key steps in catalytic cycles can be influenced by the electronic and steric properties of "spectator" ligands, e.g. phosphines, imines and N-heterocyclic carbenes. Strongly donating ligands tend to promote oxidative addition and retard migratory CO insertion, whereas sterically bulky ligands tend to have the opposite effects on these steps.[4] In a recent study of the mechanism of rhodium/xantphos-catalysed methanol carbonylation it was found that the key intermediates contained xantphos coordinated as a tridentate "pincer" ligand and the nucleophilicity of the metal centre is enhanced by a Rh---O interaction.[5]

Computational studies
Our experimental studies are complimented by theoretical calculations, carried out in collaboration with Dr. Anthony Meijer in this department. We are interested in modelling trends in organometallic reactivity and spectroscopic properties, e.g. vibrational spectra of metal carbonyl complexes.

Facilities
The department is well-equipped with modern instrumentation for NMR spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography, mass-spectrometry and chromatography. In addition, the group has dedicated FTIR instruments for kinetic measurements, including high pressure and stopped-flow IR cells.

References
1. (a) JACS, 1991, 113, 8567; (b) JACS, 1993, 115, 4093.
2. JACS, 2004, 126, 2847.
3. Inorg. Chem., 2009, 48, 28
4. (a) JACS, 2002, 124, 13597; (b) Organometallics, 2003, 22, 1047; (c) Organometallics, 2003, 22, 4451.
5. Organometallics, 2011, 30, 6166.

Research Interests

Scattering methods

Much of my research focuses on the structural analysis of soft matter materials and in particular polymers. We live in a Golden age of Materials Science and Biology, based on a solid underpinning from Chemistry and Physics. One of the keys to this success is recent progress in structural characterization techniques where scattering methods, giving access to structural organization of matter from atomic scales to microns, occupy a dominating role. Experimental data obtained by scattering methods (SAXS, WAXS, XRD, SANS and SLS) provide structural information associated with Fourier space. My research investigates how this information can be transformed into real space, convenient for our understanding. This involves structural modelling, Monte-Carlo simulations and Fourier transformation techniques. An advantage of scattering methods is that they can be used for kinetic studies of materials in-situ in different environments. Therefore, an other aspect of my work is design of dedicated experimental set-ups for studying materials under external impact such as shear flow or extensional flow, temperature or pH changes. I have a continuous interest in fat crystallization, colloids and nanoparticles structure, in particular core-shell systems (examples of my research are nanodiamonds to carbon onions transition, a phase separation of polyurethane confined by a nanosized spherical shell). My current research is on thermo-responsive block-copolymer micelles and vesicles.

Mechano-optical rheology

Rheology is widely recognized as a basic method in processing of polymers, food and cosmetics. In addition, visualization can be used as an effective tool for studying phenomena taking place in fluids. Since soft matter materials subjected to flow often demonstrate a related anisotropy in their refractive index and stress, this causes birefringence visualizing the flow. I have recently developed a new combinatorial technique, shear-induced polarized light imaging (SIPLI), for rheo-optical measurements of polymeric liquids. The SIPLI technique has already been successfully used for studying shear-induced nucleation and crystallization of polyolefins (see the figure), fibrillation in natural silks and flow alignment of block-copolymer self-assembled structures. My present research focuses on further development of SIPLI for in-situ studies of shear-induced phenomena such as stress, orientation and structural transitions taking place in gels, polymers, copolymers, liquid crystals and colloids.

Polymer crystallization

Microstructure of solidified polymers depends on thermo-mechanical process history. In general, processed thermoplastics are composed of two structural morphologies: spherulitic (isotropic) and shish-kebab (anisotropic). Ratio of these morphologies in the end-product controls its mechanical properties and material performance. While spherulitic structure is reasonably understood there is still no a reliable theory for structural formation of shear-induced shish-kebabs. My work is on physical understanding of how the formation of shear-induced morphologies is related to polymer polydispersity, thermodynamics and flow conditions. Based on our research we have proposed a four-stage model for shish-kebab formation including stretching of molecules, nucleation, aggregation and fibrillation.