First year talks

Talks from the new PhD students, outlining their current projects now nearly a year down the line.

This week, talks will be from Ellen Young and Eoin Ó Laighléis.

Eoin Ó Laighléis

A Hamiltonian approach to non-equilibrium physics

The study of first passage processes often involves studying rare events. An example is the extinction of a stable population due to large fluctuations. Here, I will discuss a method of studying the mean first passage times and the most probable paths taken in rare events by introducing a Hamiltonian formalism and studying paths in phase space. 

Ellen Young

I will give a short talk on our attempts to characterise biofilm surface roughness. I will outline the theoretical and experimental literature on this topic and discuss our attempts to create a phase diagram of biofilm surface roughness for different experimental parameters using individual-based modelling.