Profile

Well I don’t just do science all day, that’s for sure.

One of my favourite things to do is listen to music. I probably spend too much time looking through record shops or scrolling through bandcamp for new stuff. I always have a tune in my head and frequently annoy my partner by cheerfully whistling for ages at a time.

I do a lot of sport these days – mainly cycling and running. My job involves a lot of sitting down at a computer screen, so when I’m done I have a lot of energy left and have to move about! I recently started competing in ultramarathon races. Next year my goal is to run a 100 mile race.

Other hobbies come and go. I like to be outdoors, especially in the mountains. Occasionally I make beer, which is fun and sciency. And playing games!

Most of what I do involves computers, which is lucky because that’s what I’m best at. You can do a lot of interesting science just by writing computer code which looks like this

In my current job, I’m working on code that helps us to understand something called the ‘transition to turbulence’. This is when the movement of a fluid or a gas goes from being smooth and predictable to being complicated and chaotic. I see this every morning when I make a cup of tea:

When you put the milk in suddenly it starts to move in a very curious way as the cold milk quickly mixes with the hot water. This sort of thing happens all the time in the air too – you can try to think of some examples. Even though it’s so common, there’s a lot we don’t understand because it’s just so complex. We want to know things like: why does turbulence exist? Can we predict when it will happen? and Can we find patterns or shapes in it and explain them? People have been thinking carefully about these things for at least 100 years!

When I’m not studying turbulence, I’ve also worked on projects that involve simulating the way that the heart works and predicting the behaviour of materials used in artificial muscles for robots. The maths and computer skills that you need to learn about these different things is very similar – that’s the great thing about being an applied mathematician: I can work on all sorts of interesting stuff. My newest project is about simulating floods in Peru and after that I have an idea about studying squid skin camoflauge…

Usually I just work on whatever I feel like for most of the day, though I do sometimes have deadlines or stuff that I absolutely have to do. Being an academic is a bit different from most jobs in that I don’t really have a ‘boss’ who tells me what to do – I’m basically free to do what I want (within reason!)

Firstly, I spend a lot of time reading and learning because there are so many things I have to know about. Then I do my research, which mostly involves:

• Just sitting and thinking about my problem with a pencil and paper.
• Writing computer code (and desperately trying to fix bits I’ve broken).
• Getting results – running the programs, often on a supercomputer.
• Analysing them – working out what they mean.
• Discussing and working things out with other scientists.

The last point is really important. Science is a massive community effort and I feel very fortunate to work alongside many clever researchers who are really good at what they do. It’s definitely one of the best aspects of my job. As an added bonus it means I often get to travel to cool places to meet up and chat with them.