Dario dell'Arciprete started his PhD with Wilson Poon and me in September 2011. He is using microfluidics experiments to study how confined geometries affect microbial swimming and population dynamics.
Timothy Bush started his PhD in September 2011. He is using computer simulations to study the dynamics of microbial ecosystems.
Luca Ciandrini is a SULSA-funded PhD student who is jointly supervised by Mamen Romano and Ian Stansfield in Aberdeen and by me. He works in Aberdeen but visits Edinburgh regularly. He uses TASEP models to describe protein production in yeast.
Steven Court is a second-year PhD student, funded by a Carnegie Trust scholarship. He is working with me and Richard Blythe on a project to use computer simulations to understand how horizontally acquired genes are transferred between bacteria in spatially structured communities. This project has led us to investigate the physics of multiple stacked contact processes, or "parasites on parasites". Steven is also working with me and Bartlomiej Waclaw on a project to simulate the evolution of metabolic networks.
Kym Eden-Jones is a third-year PhD student with Cait MacPhee and me. He's using simulations to model the growth of amyloid fibrils, in collaboration with another PhD student, Ryan Morris, who is doing experiments with Cait MacPhee on amyloid fibril nucleation.
Philip Greulich is a DAAD fellow working with me and Martin Evans. He is using TASEP models to understand gene expression. Recently, Philip has been collaborating with Luca Ciandrini, Mamen Romano and me to understand how multiple messenger RNA molecules compete for a limited pool of ribosomes.
Tom Lion is a third-year PhD student. He is using Molecular Dynamics simulations to understand the physics behind osmotic pressure. In particular he is simulating a model in which solute and solvent particles have identical short-ranged interaction potentials and the semi-permeable membrane is invisible to the solvent. This model seems simple but isn't! Recently Tom has discovered that interesting physics can happen when the solutes are active particles such as swimming bacteria or Janus particles.
Juho Lintuvuori is a postdoc working with me, Kevin Stratford and Davide Marenduzzo. Juho is funded by our EPSRC grant "Rare event simulations via parallel forward flux sampling". He is working to implement the forward flux sampling rare event simulation method in existing software packages such as LAMPPS and the Edinburgh Lattice Boltzmann code Ludwig.
Diarmuid Lloyd is a second-year PhD student working with me and Paul Clegg. He is doing experimental work at the interface between soft matter and biological physics. In particular Diarmuid is interested in the patterns formed when single bacterial cells grow to colonize a flat surface, and the physical factors that control the shape and genealogical structure of growing bacterial colonies. In a parallel project, Diarmuid uses a microscope pressure cell to find out how hydrophobic interactions depend on pressure: this should help us understand better the fundamental physics underlying the hydrophobic effect.
Juan Venegas-Ortiz is a third-year PhD student working with Martin Evans and me. He is currently using theory and simulations to understand the dynamics of expanding microbial populations which undergo evolution by horizontal gene transfer.
Bartek Waclaw is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellow who is working on theories for evolutionary dynamics in bacterial populations. He has recently published a paper showing a dynamical phase transition in a simple model for evolution with migration. Bartek is also interested in lots of other topics including horizontal gene transfer, the evolution of antibiotic resistance and the effect of viruses on bacterial diversity.
S. Lucas Black defended his PhD thesis in January 2011. Lucas was jointly supervised by me and Dr. Bruce Ward. His work focused on the response of the enteric bacterium Escherichia coli and the marine bacterium Photobacterium profundum to hydrostatic and osmotic pressure. In particular Lucas developed a high throughput method for growing bacteria at pressure which he used to identify new essential genes for growth of E. coli at moderate pressure and to map the growth of P. profundum as a function of pressure and salt concentration. He also helped develop a high resolution microscope pressure cell Lucas is now a postdoc in the group of Nathalie Declerck in Montpellier.
Line Jourdain worked with me and Cait MacPhee as a postdoc doing experiments and simulations on amyloid nucleation. She is now a Maitre de Conference in Orleans.
Bhavin Khatri worked with me and Andrew Free as a postdoc, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and by EPSRC, constructing theoretical models for microbial ecosystems and developing a new method to analyse experimental DGGE data. He is now a postdoc at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research in London.
Eulyn Pagaling is an environmental microbiologist who worked as a postdoc with Andrew Free and me, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and by EPSRC. She used advanced DNA-based techniques to study how microbial communities assemble, based on a model system of microcosms made from freshwater pond sediment and water. Eulyn is now a postdoc with Tao Yan at the University of Hawaii.
Chantal Valeriani was a Marie Curie research fellow in the Edinburgh soft matter group. She collaborated with me and Davide Marenduzzo to simulate nonequilibrium colloidal "chuckers". Chantal is now a Juan de la Cierva Research Fellow at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Paolo Visco worked with me and Martin Evans as a postdoc doing theoretical work and simulations on genetic switches and populations of switching cells in switching environments. He is now a CNRS researcher in Paris.