Developing advanced numerical methods, models, and computational techniques for prediction and monitoring
We forecast and model a wide range of industrial and environmental processes, with a particular focus on developing and applying advanced numerical methods and scientific computational techniques.
We engineer solutions to some of the most pressing global problems — including how pollution travels through busy cities, how metals enter and disperse through the environment, and how ocean wave energy dissipates on shorelines during storm surges — and work to understand the myriad physical processes occuring in the pristine and perturbed natural environment.
By reproducing realistic surfaces of flowing liquids, crashing waves, bursting bubbles and more, our modelling sheds light on processes such as:
- ocean circulation;
- climate systems;
- nuclear safety;
- radiative transport and multi-phase flow;
- fluid-particulate-solid behaviour;
- minerals processing; and
- meteorite impacts.
If you are interested in one of the projects listed below, we encourage you to contact the primary project supervisor or the alternative contact person for further information.
Current Projects
Pore-Scale Imaging, Analysis, and Data-Driven Pore-Scale Modelling Info Sheet - Blunt Pore-Scale Imaging]
Supervisor: Professor Martin Blunt
Topology, wettability and fluid flow in porous materials [Info Sheet - Blunt Topology]
Supervisor: Professor Martin Blunt
Modelling and predicting flotation froth stability [Info Sheet - Brito-Parada Froth Stability]
Supervisors: Dr Pablo Brito-Parada, Professor Stephen Neethling
Dynamic Isotopic and Probabilistic Modelling of Global Metal Flows: Integrating Isotope Geochemistry, Bayesian Inference, and System Dynamics to Advance Industrial Ecology [Info Sheet - Plancherel DIPMod]
Supervisors: Dr Yves Plancherel, Rupert Myers, Pablo Brito-Parada, Kolyan Ray
Integrating Multimodal Very-High-Resolution Data for Ecosystem Intelligence and Natural Capital Monitoring [Info Sheet - Plancherel AI4UAV]
Supervisors: Dr Yves Plancherel, Matt Piggott
Data-Driven Detection and Attribution of Illegal Resource Extraction [Info Sheet - Plancherel IllegalResources]
Supervisors: Dr Yves Plancherel
Decoding inner solar system bombardment from crater populations [Info Sheet - Collins Crater Scaling]
Supervisors: Prof Gareth Collins
Impact Processing of Planetary Crust [Info Sheet - Collins Impact Porosity]
Supervisors: Prof Gareth Collins, Mark Wieczorek (IPGP)
Digital twin tools for decarbonisation management [Info Sheet - Fang digital twin]
Supervisors: Dr Fangxin Fang
New generation data assimilation and rapid response models for urban flooding [Info Sheet - Fang Flooding]
Supervisors: Dr Fangxin Fang, Professor Christopher Pain
Optimisation of sensor locations for observation of air flows/pollutions [Info Sheet - Fang Sensor]
Supervisors: Dr Fangxin Fang, Professor Christopher Pain
Rapid Response Modelling for Assessment of Pollution and Toxic Releases in Complex Urban Environments [Info Sheet - Fang ROM]
Supervisors: Dr Fangxin Fang, Professor Christopher Pain
Environmental Pollution & Marine Biogeochemistry – Isotopic Tracing and Modelling of Lead & Cadmium in the Indian Ocean [Info Sheet - van De Flierdt indian ocean]
Supervisors: Professor Tina van de Flierdt, Professor Mark Rehkämper
Structure and Evolution of the African Plate from Geophysical Observations [Info Sheet - Goes Africa Joint Tomography]
Supervisors: Professor Saskia Goes, Dr Gareth Roberts
Simulating impacts onto Saturn’s icy moons and rings [Info Sheet - Kegerreis Ice Impacts]
Supervisors: Dr Jacob Kegerreis, Professor Gareth Collins, Dr Paul Estrada (NASA)
Simulating impacts onto Earth: from enabling early life to causing extinction [Info Sheet - Kegerreis Earth Impacts]
Supervisors: Dr Jacob Kegerreis, Professor Gareth Collins, Dr Vincent Eke (Durham University)
Global CO2 storage capacity: Modeling limitations of geography and injectivity [Info Sheet - Krevor CO2StorageCapacity]
Supervisor: Prof Sam Krevor
Reservoir characterisation and modelling of CO2 storage underground [Info Sheet - Krevor CO2StorageModelling]
Supervisor: Prof Sam Krevor
Learning dynamics on manifolds with neural geodesic flows [Moseley Learning dynamics on manifolds]
Supervisor: Dr Ben Moseley
Learning fast and generalizable climate models with neural differential equations [Moseley - generalizable climate models]
Supervisors: Dr Ben Moseley, Professor Christopher Pain
Multi-scale simulation with physics-informed neural networks [Info Sheet - Moseley PINNs]
Supervisor: Dr Ben Moseley
Determining ancient field intensities from chemical remanent magnetisations in rocks and meteorites [Info sheet - Ancient Field Intensities]
Supervisors: Prof. Adrian Muxworthy, Prof. Dominik Weiss, and Dr. David Heslop (ANU, Canberra)
Using the magnetic signature of former hydrocarbon-rich environments to test for the suitability of carbon Sequestration: A numerical approach [Info sheet - Magnetic Signature of Hydrocarbon-rich Environments]
Supervisors: Prof. Adrian Muxworthy, and Prof. Wyn Williams (University of Edinburgh)
Reduced-Order and Sparse Reconstruction Methods for Cardiac Ultrasound FWI [Info Sheet - Nelson MI]
Supervisors: Dr Rhodri Nelson, Prof Gerard Gorman
Dynamic Mesh Adaptivity in Large-Scale Finite Difference Simulations [Info Sheet - Nelson AMR]
Supervisors: Dr Rhodri Nelson, Prof Gerard Gorman
Mixed-Precision Algorithms for High-Performance Physics Simulations [Info Sheet - Nelson RP]
Supervisors: Dr Rhodri Nelson, Prof Gerard Gorman
CASL in Devito: high-fidelity geophysical fluid simulation with contour methods[Info Sheet - Nelson CASL]
Supervisors: Dr Rhodri Nelson, Prof Gerard Gorman
Mantle Dynamic Impacts on Cenozoic Sea-Level Evolution [Info Sheet - Richards mantle]
Supervisors: Dr Fred Richards
Mapping the Continental Hydrogen Kitchen [Info Sheet - Richards mapping]
Supervisors: Dr Fred Richards, Ann Muggeridge, Rebecca Bell, Valentin Laurent, and Michele Paulatto
Source-to-Sink Analysis of Critical Metal Mineralisation [Info Sheet - Richards source to sink]
Supervisors: Dr Fred Richards, Tom Lamont (UNLV) and Alex Lipp (UCL)
Uncovering the impact of mantle dynamics on Cenozoic ocean circulation [Info Sheet - Richards uncovering]
Supervisors: Dr Fred Richards
Current projects in the Environmental Geochemistry Group for the Academic Year 2026/2027 [Info Sheet - Weiss PhD projects]
Supervisor: Professor Dominik Weiss
Machine learning for subsurface multiphase flow in the energy transition [Info sheet - Machine Learning for Multiphase Flow]
Supervisors: Dr Gege Wen