Physical Sciences
Dr Gernot Schaller – Maxwell’s Demon: Extracting Energy from Chaos
Since it was theorised over 150 years ago, physicists have viewed the concept of ‘Maxwell’s demon’ as a highly desirable yet ultimately unattainable source of energy. For over a century, the device seemed to work theoretically, but a fundamental barrier prevented it...
Professor Gustaaf Jacobs – Modelling Shock Waves and Particle Interactions in High-Speed Flows
Understanding how shock waves, flow dynamics and turbulence all interact and affect the distribution of particles has applications ranging from high-speed vehicles to explosions and even ocean sediment dynamics. Professor Gustaaf Jacobs at San Diego State University...
Professor Thomas Voigtmann – Non-Equilibrium Materials: Bridging a Gap in Understanding
Measuring the mechanical properties of different materials by analysing their behaviour is a familiar task to many scientists and engineers. Yet for some more unusual materials, large-scale material properties are incredibly difficult to predict using current methods....
SFB 1027 – Cell Physics: Understanding How Biological Matter Self-Organises
The Collaborative Research Centre SFB 1027 at the Saarland University in Saarbrücken and Homburg is an interdisciplinary research team that aims to achieve a quantitative understanding of the physical mechanisms at work when biological matter self-organises into...
Dr Albert Guskov – Metal Transport Unlocks Routes to New Antibiotics
Metals have been improving our lives since the bronze age, but they also play a key role in keeping us healthy. We rely on numerous metals, such as cobalt, zinc and magnesium (among others), to perform essential roles in our bodies. Many bacteria also require these...
Professor Romano Orru – Cheap and Eco-friendly Drug Synthesis using Biocatalysis and One-Pot Processes
Developing more efficient techniques for synthesising complex drug molecules is a painstaking process. However, this is something that Dr Romano Orru of Vrije University Amsterdam is very much committed to. His team is working towards higher efficiency and yield in...
Dr Uli Klein – Supernova-accelerated Electrons to Dark Matter: A Career in Radio Astronomy
Considering we didn’t know of their existence just a century ago, our current knowledge of the structures and dynamics of galaxies is extraordinarily impressive. Among those who have enhanced our understanding of these building blocks of the Universe is Dr Uli Klein,...
Dr Simon Friederich – A Rare Universe? The Multiverse Debate Through the Lens of Philosophy
How did we get here? How could a universe with such simple physical laws have created something as complex as us? These questions are so fundamental that even after millennia, neither scientists nor philosophers have reached a universally satisfying answer. Dr Simon...
Dr Román Orús – Tensor Networks: Untangling the Mysteries of Quantum Systems
For decades, physicists have struggled endlessly with the problem of quantum many-body systems – systems containing multiple quantum particles. Because of quantum properties, the ways in which these systems behave are unpredictable when using conventional mathematics,...
Professor Liping Gan – Probing Matter and More: Beyond the Standard Model
Professor Liping Gan and her team at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility are working to deepen our understanding of the matter that makes up our Universe. While key theories such as the Standard Model and Quantum Chromodynamics can provide...
Dr YuHuang Wang – A Bright Family of Quantum Defects
Carbon nanotubes are a remarkable material – more conductive than copper and stronger than steel, yet just a billionth of a metre wide. Their application has already proven invaluable across science and engineering, but only recently have scientists looked into...
Professor Philip Walther – Indefinite Causal Order: Faster Computers and Fundamental Questions
Quantum mechanics has greatly improved the speeds at which computers make calculations, but new research shows that quantum computers can be made to run even faster. Professor Philip Walther and his team at the University of Vienna have shown that the very orders in...
Professor Hans De Raedt – Software for Realistic Simulations of Quantum Systems
The potential capabilities of universal quantum computers have many of us excited, but there’s one problem – we aren’t close to building complex, functional quantum computers just yet. In the meantime, scientists need to test the capabilities of quantum computing...
Professor Colin Wolden | Professor Douglas Way – Saving the World through Fertiliser and Fuel
At the turn of the century, two unassuming chemists collaborated on the seemingly mundane task of converting nitrogen and hydrogen into ammonia. At the end of their collaboration, they had changed the course of our civilisation forever. At the Colorado School of...
Dr Ganesh Balasubramanian – Cuckoo Search: Using Evolutionary Algorithms to Optimise Materials
From the metal in our cars to the circuits in our phones, the materials we use in our everyday lives can be meticulously engineered on a molecular scale to suit our requirements. However, there are so many possible arrangements of atoms and molecules at this...
Dr Timur Tscherbul – The Coolest Job on Earth? Exploring Ultracold Chemical Reactions
Algorithms are everywhere. From the targeted ads that flood your Facebook feed, to the split-second decision making of self-driving cars, they can be surprisingly simple or considerably complicated. At the University of Nevada, Dr Tscherbul and his research team are...
Dr Bill Challener – Exploiting Fibre Optics for Detecting Pipeline Leaks
Some of the best ideas in science are ones that seem completely obvious – but only after someone else has thought them up. In the world of pipeline leak detection, Dr Bill Challener and his team at GE Global Research have dramatically extended the range of one of the...
Dr Dan Durda – Studying the Surface of Asteroids by Investigating Powder in the Lab
Space scientist Dr Dan Durda and his team at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, are working to understand how the planets in our Solar System evolved. The team is searching for practical ways to exploit nearby asteroids, through investigating how...
Bretislav Friedrich – The Exacting Task of Bringing Molecules to Attention
Molecules are relentlessly dynamic – vibrating, cartwheeling, and zigzagging in a restless hustle. In order to study molecular properties and interactions, their motions must be tamed to a certain degree. In particular, the ability to make molecules face in a specific...
Professor Setthivoine You – Hope for Humanity in the Energy Crisis: Astronomical Jets in a Lab
If we consider Earth as a closed box in which humanity has only ever lived, the second law of thermodynamics says that in the end, inevitably, the box will reach a state of maximum disorder. So, in the long run, there are two important ways in which our species might...
Pound | Kane | Martinez | Remington – Creating the Eagle Nebula Pillars in the Lab
The ‘Pillars of Creation’ is one of the most iconic images ever taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, but the processes that formed these colossal tendrils of the Eagle Nebula are still not entirely understood. To test emerging theories, Drs Marc Pound, Jave Kane,...
Dr Mark Giampapa – Studying Our Changing Sun by Getting to Know its Relatives
Astrophysicist Dr Mark Giampapa of the National Solar Observatory with his team from astronomical centres in the US and Europe try to understand how the magnetic activity of the Sun evolves and how it will behave in the future. The team does this by exploring the...
Dr Andrew K. Udit – Calling in the Bioelectrician
In the world of chemistry, the search for new and improved catalysts is of great importance. Inspired by a family of vital biological molecules, cytochrome P450 catalysts could be the way of the future for industry – if only they could be made to work better. Dr...
Professor Michael Brown – Literal Sun Jars: Shrinking Stars for Energy Production
Science is the pursuit of knowledge – a search for an understanding. Sometimes that knowledge is simply collected and catalogued away for future reference (the laser was discovered in this manner) but, often, it is searched out vehemently to achieve something of...
Dr Lisa Hibbard – Actively Learning Chemistry: Blended Classes for First Year College Students
Flipped learning is an exciting new educational strategy aimed at maximising learning by delivering the content of courses online, while focusing classroom time on student-centred active learning tasks. Dr Lisa Hibbard at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA has been...
Dr Melissa Morris – Refining the Theories of Planet Formation
Science and philosophy are two of the most important pillars of human civilisation. But when it comes to the important questions, is there really much difference between them? Where do we come from? What is the meaning of life? Answers to such philosophical questions...
Professor Balakumar Balachandran – Using Noise to Control Micromechanical & Macromechanical Systems
Micromechanical oscillators are components of many electronic systems that keep track of signal processing and ensure data is moved around without becoming jumbled up. Professor Balachandran and his team at the University of Maryland are exploring how noise can be...
Dr Jasper van Wezel – The Unexpected Spirals of Electron Density
Spirals are an intriguing shape to find in the natural world because they have handedness – turning either to the left or right as you move along them – and it’s this property that makes the work of Dr Jasper van Wezel and his team at the University of Amsterdam...
Dr Lian-Ping Wang – Understanding Particle-Fluid Interaction Dynamics in Turbulent Flow
Almost every aspect of the global water cycle involves a mixture of fluids and particles – raindrop formation, ocean currents and water percolation through the soil. This mixture of gas and liquid or liquid and solid causes behaviour that is important to understand,...
Professor Lisa Dierker – Falling in Love with Statistics: Shaping Students’ Relationships with Data
Statistical data analysis is a cornerstone of the sciences and operates as a shared language across disparate fields, from neuroscience to astronomy. However, current curricula often result in disengaged and stressed students who struggle to connect the concepts of...
The RAPP Center: Searching for Answers in Plasma-Astroparticle Physics
The Ruhr Astroparticle and Plasma Physics (RAPP) Center was established in 2015 by Professor Julia Tjus and her colleagues within the University Alliance Ruhr – a collaboration between the three universities of the Ruhr area: Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Technische...
Professor Thomas Albrecht-Schmitt – The Exotic Chemistry of the Heaviest Elements
Relatively little is known about the chemical reactivity of radioactive elements, as using them in the lab requires heroic efforts. However, Professor Thomas Albrecht-Schmitt and his group at Florida State University have successfully been able to investigate the...