Ben Durnford

Name: Ben Durnford

Email Address: fmfd5396@leeds.ac.uk

Background: 

I graduated from Durham University last summer with an integrated masters in chemistry and physics. My education spanned the two disciplines, with a particular emphasis on soft matter physics, quantum mechanics and crystallography. In my final year, I did a research project on modelling delayed gel collapse in soft polymeric hydrogels computationally and, in the summer preceding this, I worked in a lab as part of a summer project investigating the same phenomena experimentally. 

Research Interests: 

I am particularly interested in rheology and computational physics, with a particular emphasis on fracture dynamics in soft glassy materials. These materials are viscoelastic and deform in a particular unusual way. When an external stress is applied to them, they first support the load for an extended time before collapsing suddenly, irreversibly breaking their internal structure. Interestingly, this mechanism is also responsible for the fracture of sea ice and slow earthquake events.  

Why I chose the CDT in Fluid Dynamics: 

My pathway to choosing the CDT was quite unusual and atypical. Unlike most, I had not been exposed much to fluid dynamics during my undergraduate degree and I was first exposed to it within my masters year. This left me wanting to explore this subject further and to learn more about it mathematically. Therefore, I decided to apply to this program (alongside a few others) a few days before the deadline and I got offered an interview a few weeks later. When attending the interview, I had a gut feeling that this was the right path for me, and I do not regret my decision to join the CDT one bit. The structure of the course provides a strong foundation in various areas of fluid dynamics and different scientific disciplines, encouraging curiosity, and gives each student the option to design their own PhD project which is particularly unusual and highly valuable.