We are a modestly sized, friendly, widely interdisciplinary yet highly collaborative research group. Each of us has a particular specialty, but we share interests and expertise – discussing ideas and lending a hand is central to our ethos. Our research often requires a broad understanding of science, and so students and staff tend to develop a working knowledge of quite a wide range of physics, chemistry, materials science and engineering disciplines. Our students come from a variety of STEM backgrounds. Some join us straight from undergraduate courses, while others are further into their professional careers (sometimes seconded from their existing roles, either full or part time).
As an industry-focused group, some of our research leads to real-world applications in a much shorter timescale than is usual for academia, and we aim to provide PhD students with the tools necessary to thrive whether they stay in academia or leave to work in industry after graduation. We have a high staff-to-student ratio, and offer significant hands-on support for students.
Industrial funding doesn’t mean you’re just collecting data for your sponsor – Our partners continue to work with us decade after decade because we can help them understand the underlying physics of a problem (and often the problem itself is not well defined). In this vein, we take care to design PhD projects such that our industrial and government partners offer guidance and motivation, without unnecessarily limiting freedom or flexibility to pursue interesting avenues of research.
