Theoretical physicist and pure mathematician among recipients of new Research Fellowships

EPSRC awards for four Imperial academics - News

By Danielle Reeves
11 August 2006

Four academics from Imperial College London have been awarded Research Fellowships by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Professors Jerome Gauntlett  from the Colleges Department of Physics and Martin Bridson  from the Department of Mathematics have been awarded prestigious Senior Research Fellowships - of which the EPSRC only awards six nationally every year.

In addition, Dr Andrew Ho from the Department of Physics and Dr Lionel Rossi from the Department of Aeronautics have been given Advanced Research Fellowships, which are awarded to outstanding researchers with between three and 10 years of postdoctoral experience.

Professor Jerome Gauntlett from the theoretical physics research group has been awarded his five-year Senior Fellowship for his continuing research into string theory - a theory that might unify the two cornerstones of physics: Einstein's theory of general relativity and quantum theory. Professor Gauntlett is using string theory to investigate the quantum properties of black holes as well as to study quantum field theories by developing and exploiting novel geometrical structures.

Professor Gauntlett, who has also recently been granted a Wolfson Merit Award by the Royal Society, said: "I am delighted to have been given these two awards, as they will allow me to focus 100 per cent on my research in the coming years. It is a real honour that my research has been recognised by the Royal Society and by EPSRC in this way."

Professor Martin Bridson who is based in the pure maths section of Imperial's Department of Mathematics has been awarded his Senior Fellowship for research into geometric group theory and low dimensional topology - central areas of modern mathematics. His work has revealed deep connections between geometry, and computational and linguistic complexity, and has been applied to robotics, biology and internet architecture.

Professor Bridson said: "I'm very happy to have been given this Senior Research Fellowship by the EPSRC. The most precious resource a mathematician can have is a block of uninterrupted time to mount concerted attacks on fundamental problems. The five years of freedom provided by this award is therefore a wonderful opportunity to take my research to a deeper level. I shall continue to work on fundamental issues within mathematics, but always with a keen interest in how unexpected applications may spring forth."

Professor Bridson has also recently received the prestigious Wolfson Research Merit Award from the Royal Society.

Dr Andrew Ho from the Department of Physics' condensed matter theory group has been given his Advanced Research Fellowship for research into a new form of matter. This matter is made up of a gas of atoms trapped by lasers into a regular pattern, cooled to one thousand millionth of a degree just above absolute zero. Dr Ho plans to investigate theoretically the effects of manipulating this new matter, which is at such a low temperature that the atoms behave like waves and exhibit collaborative behaviour that even modern computers cannot simulate accurately.

Dr Ho said: "The EPSRC's Fellowship is a great boost to my research activities here at Imperial and I am looking forward to working on projects concerning quantum many-body physics, and collaborating with the ongoing experiments on this new matter of Prof. Ed Hinds at Imperial Physics, which may pave the way for developing revolutionary quantum computing techniques."

Dr Lionel Rossi from the College's Department of Aeronautics in the Faculty of Engineering has received his Advanced Research Fellowship for his study of turbulence and mixing. The five-year research project will look at understanding turbulent flows - which occur in industrial processes, in the oceans, and in the Earths atmosphere - in order to control them. The research will lead to a greater understanding of the way turbulent flows work, and could have many practical applications in industry, such as using turbulent-like flows to create efficient mixers.

Dr Rossi said: "I'm really pleased to have been given this Advanced Research Fellowship by the EPSRC. Turbulence constitutes a serious obstacle to the satisfactory description of a large majority of engineering, geophysical and environmental problems. By using a combination of theory, experiments and numerical simulations, I hope to understand more about how turbulent flows work. This understanding could then be used to look at solving some of the problems related to turbulence and its control in real-world applications."

Professor Chris Hankin , Imperial's Pro-Rector for Research, congratulated the new research fellows, saying: "It's great news for the College that the outstanding work of four of our staff has been recognised by the EPSRC with these fellowships. In particular, it is a fitting tribute to the outstanding research being conducted here at Imperial, that two of the EPSRC's prestigious Senior Fellowships have been awarded to our academics, when so few are given out nationally each year."

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