My CV, like everybody else’s, is a short career biography. Although I’ve now just turned 40, I still have heaps of energy and enthusiasm for science and especially applied mathematics, and am working hard to keep up with the amazing developments in neural networks, machine learning and fuzzy systems (its almost impossible!) and I welcome invitations to collaborate on research projects.
ME IN A NUTSHELL
I am a mathematical physicist from Liverpool with a craze for patterns. I have been researching, teaching and publishing on my career travels from England to Scotland to Spain to Greece and back. The neuro-fuzzy part of me would say I am a data and pattern analyser “to a large degree” but NARIMAX forecast networks, multifractals and complex adaptive systems are some of the my other research interests.
I graduated from the Pure & Applied Physics Department of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) way back in 1992 and then went on to do Ph.D. in Theoretical Fusion Physics in the Maths Institute of Saint Andrews University in Scotland in 1996. My first postdoctoral position was in the Space & Atmospheric Physics Group of Imperial College, London where I analysed data from the Galileo mission to Jupiter and studied ion cyclotron waves in its planetary aurorae. The Institute of Physics awarded me the title of Chartered Physicist in 1997 for my work on ion cyclotron waves and I worked for their Scientific Books Publishing Department for a couple of years commissioning and editing research monographs, graduate textbooks and popular science books in the fields of plasma physics, astronomy & astrophysics, cosmology, optics and atomic & molecular physics. Having survived the Y2K Bug, a year later I lectured physics and mathematics at the University of Bath before returning to full time research again in 2003 analysing atmospheric turbulence in models of urban street canyons as a postdoc in the Engineering Department of Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University. Soon after, I moved to Spain and completed a postdoctoral position on Ionised Hydrogen Galaxies and Planetary Nebulae in the Astrophysics Group of the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Autonomous University of Madrid. I then joined the Herschel Space Telescope (HST) Research Team in the Department of Astrophysical Molecules and the Infrared (DAMIR) of the Consejo Superior de Inestivaciones Cientificas (Spanish National Research Council) and developed 3D photoionisation Monte-Carlo radiative-transfer models as well as inverse problem tools for use by the HST. In 2007, my proposal “Space weather prediction using nonlinear techniques” received a one year research scholarship from the Greek National Scholarships Foundation (IKY) and I collaborated with members of the Institute for Space Applications and Remote Sensing of the National Observatory of Athens to develop Volterra neural network models of the 1-6 MeV energetic electron flux in the Van Allen radiation belts out to 10 Earth radii. I am currently happily collaborating with members of the Atmospheric Physics & Chemistry Group of the Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development at the National Observatory of Athens, to develop a global real-time monitor of aerosols.
In addition to science, I support LFC, and am a big fan of learning through teaching and take my hat off to Paulo Freire, Richard Feynman and Raoul Vaneigem. I owe a big thank you to all the students of pure and applied mathematics, statistics, physics, biomechanics and sport technology in secondary schools, colleges and universities that I’ve been lucky enough to meet over the years. I have commissioned and edited over 30 popular science and graduate textbooks including my favourite Black Holes, Worm Holes and Time Machines by the inspiring science communicator Professor Jim Al-Khalili of the University of Surrey. Any education worth its salt must of course be accessible and I am part of a multi-author team in the field of scientometrics contributing to the development of global, free-access scientific publishing models. When I’m not doing research, I play competitive chess, design websites, create e-CDs, organise festivals, or just hang out with my mates.
