Hermes 2014 is an entirely student led event organised by PhD students from Imperial College London, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Cambridge. They met at Hermes 2012 and were inspired to bring the Hermes experience to another group of materials modelling students.
Daniel Rathbone
Daniel is studying for a PhD at the Theory and Simulation of Materials CDT at Imperial College London. Working at the macroscale, he is developing models to better simulate granular materials. He is working in close collaboration with Johnson Matthey who are conducting experiments he hopes will verify his models!
In his free time Daniel is often found on the stage with Southfields Theatre Group. Most recently he appeared in ‘Time of My Life’ by Alan Ayckbourn.
Flaviu Cipcigan
Flaviu is a first year PhD at the Condensed Matter Doctoral Training Centre at the University of Edinburgh. He’s working closely with the National Physical Laboratory and IBM TJ Watson Research in modelling the condensed properties of water using a novel electronic coarse grained model.
In his free time, you can spot him dancing tango, weightlifting and thinking how to better interact with technology.
He also has a strong interest in communicating science, having studied graphic design during his free time as an undergraduate. Recently, he won the South East Scotland Present Around the World competition and was awarded best talk at the Ecole de Physique Les Houches: Water at Interfaces.
Chair: Marc Coury
Marc is a second year PhD student in the Theory and Simulation of Materials CDT at Imperial College London. His research is on modelling damage in magnetic iron at high temperatures, with applications for fusion reactors. This involves regular collaborations with professors at the national laboratory, Culham Centre for Fusion Energy.
His undergraduate degree was Physics with a year in Europe, and during that time he held many positions on student society committees, represented the students as an officer for the Royal College of Science and became fluent in Italian. He is also involved in many outreach activities and still enjoys studying foreign languages.
Anibal L. Gonzalez Oyarce
Anibal is a final year Physicist in the Thin Film Magnetism Group at The Cavendish Laboratory, the University of Cambridge. He’s working on the modelling of magnetic nanosystems, this field is commonly known as Spintronics.
His interests range from practicing kung fu, cycling, video games, music, to entrepreneurship, marketing and science outreach, amongst others.
Thomas Edwards
Tom is a second year PhD student in the Theory and Simulation of Material CDT at Imperial College London. He’s working on modelling “Extremely Thin Absorber” solar cells.
Currently he is volunteering at the Code Club. This involves teaching primary school children about programming using Scratch, a visual programming environment for making games and interactive stories. In his spare time he likes to watch movies, go swimming and play video games or electric guitar.
Ben Kaube
Ben is a second year PhD student in the physics department at Imperial College London working on quantum mechanical simulations of plasmonic materials. He has a keen interest in entrepreneurship and the application of cutting-edge science and technology to solving real-world problems. Outside of his PhD project Ben co-founded media monitoring startup, newsflo, providing software solutions to help universities engage with the media.
Joel Posthuma de Boer
Joel is a second year PhD student in the Theory and Simulation of Materials CDT at Imperial College London. He is working on the epitaxial growth of Graphene on metal substrates a problem that is inherently multi scale. If he isn’t in his office he can be found in the kitchen, with his guitar, at his piano or reading books of a slightly less scientific nature.
Ali Hammad
Ali is a second year PhD student in the Theory and Simulation of Materials CDT at Imperial College London. His project uses computational methods to probe underlying mechanisms behind the behaviour of Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene, an industrially relevant material.
His hobbies are squash, football and swimming. He is also involved in outreach activities such as teaching in schools and doing science demonstrations.
Andrea Greco
Andrea is a first year PhD student in the Theory and Simulation of Material CDT at Imperial College London. He is working under the supervision of Arash Mostofi, Paul Tangney and John Freeland on the multi-scale modelling of ferroelectric thin films. His project is funded by a collaboration between the TSM CDT and Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago. Prior to joining the TSM CDT he obtained an MSci in Theoretical Physics at the University of Padova.
CC Image (top): Slice cut of the ion flux density map generated from a three-dimensional finite element simulation of epoxy sealant (UCL Mathematical and Physical Sciences)
