Speakers


Prof Catherine Noakes OBE FREng, University of Leeds


Professor Cath Noakes is a chartered mechanical engineer, with a background in fluid dynamics. She leads research into ventilation, indoor air quality and infection control in the built environment using experimental and modelling based studies.

She is Deputy Director of Leeds Institute for Fluid Dynamics and she co-chaired the Environment and Modelling sub-group of the UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) focusing on the science underpinning environmental transmission of COVID-19.



Dr Nathalie Vriend, BP Institute, Cambridge University

Nathalie Vriend obtained her ingenieurs (B.Sc. + M.Sc.) degree in Mechanical Engineering (2004) from the University of Twente, The Netherlands and her M.Sc. (2005, in Aeronautics) and Ph.D. degree (2010, in Mechanical Engineering and Geophysics) from the California Institute of Technology, USA. After a short postdoctoral position (2010 – 2011) and obtaining a competitive personal postdoctoral fellowship (2011 – 2013), she started her own research group in 2014 at the University of Cambridge.

Since January 2014, Nathalie has been group leader and Royal Society Research Fellow, first as a Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow in DAMTP (Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics) and now as a University Research Fellow at the BP Institute, both at the University of Cambridge.

Her research program on granular materials involves detailed laboratory experiments and targeted field work, but she also employs numerical simulations and theoretical modelling to complement observations, often in collaboration with scientists from multidisciplinary fields. She has active projects in granular rheology and avalanching, dune structure and migration, and sound propagation. In the past she worked on the dynamics of real snow avalanches, singing sand dunes and seismic wave propagation.


Dr Julien Hoessler, McLaren


After studying Mechanical Engineering in France at Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees, I went for a MSc in CFD at Imperial College London followed by a PhD with Prof. Spencer Sherwin -funded by McLaren Racing - looking at applying Spectral h/p techniques to complex F1 geometries. My focus was on Stability techniques (PSE and BiGlobal stability) and implicit LES applied to vortex dominated flows.

I joined in McLaren straight after starting as a CFD engineer, looking mostly at brake thermal modelling, before joining the CFD team where I held different roles from Methodology engineer to Head of CFD.

I now look after the process and HPC estate used to run internal and external CFD simulations for our F1 and IndyCar challengers, with a particular emphasis on optimising the quality and efficiency under the F1 Sporting regulations.


Dr Craig Duguid, Newcastle University

Craig Duguid completed a B.Sc. in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics followed by an M.Sc. in Information Systems both at The Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scot-land.

Craig has spent time in industry before deciding he wanted to pursue a career in academia and in particular mathematics. Craig completed his BA in Mathematics part time at The Open University in 2016 before joining the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Fluid Dynamics where he completed his PhD under the supervision of Dr Adrian Barker (principal), Prof. Chris Jones, and Dr Sven van Loo. Craig is currently a research associate (post doc) at Newcastle University working with Paul Bushy and Toby Wood investigating shear driven magnetic buoyancy in the Sun.