Graduate Destinations

The EPSRC Doctoral Training Centre in Future Fluid Dynamics and its predecessors (from 2013 and 2018 respectively) have had a positive impact on the whole fluid dynamics community across the University of Leeds (UoL). The PhD funding (~£14M from EPSRC plus co-funding from the UoL and over 30 end-user partners) has supported over 100 students (rising to >160 by 2028) all of whom have worked with supervision teams from two or more different Schools (across Biological Sciences, Computer Science, Civil Engineering, Chemical & Process Engineering, Chemistry, Earth & Environment, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Medicine and Physics & Astronomy). In many cases this has led to new interdisciplinary collaborations that have grown into larger research projects.

So far PhD students have generated >100 publications and been involved in outreach, patents and consultancy. CDT graduates have a wide range of destinations, 70% of our graduates are now working in roles that make direct use of fluid mechanics, 44% in the private sector for employers including BAE, Hydrock, RWE OffShore Wind, First Light Fusion; 37% in academia; and18% in the public sector including Health & Safety Executive, Met Office, STFC.

LIFD PhD graduates have been awarded 3 EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowships, 1 Isaac Newton Institute-Simons Foundation postdoctoral fellowship (2023-2024), 2 UKFN Thesis Prize winners (2020-2022), and 2 Margaret Steel Innovation Awards (2020).