LIFD Early Career Researcher Spotlight: Eve Shalom

Our monthly spotlight on the work and lives of the researchers from the Leeds Institute for Fluid Dynamics

This month: Eve Shalom

Thesis title: Multi-phase CFD modelling of biological tissue flows with applications in liver surgery.

School/ Faculty: School of Physics and Astronomy

Supervisors: Dr Sven Van Loo, Prof. Steven Sourbron and Dr Amirul Khan

Tell us a bit about yourself:

I’m a third-year postgraduate researcher here at Leeds in the School of Physics and Astronomy. Before moving to Leeds, I did a Physics MSci at the University of Birmingham. In my spare time, I like to get out and about in Leeds and the nearby countryside – you can’t beat a Yorkshire pub lunch! When I’m at home I love painting, finding new recipes to try out and getting new plants to look after.

What is your research about?

My research is focused on recovering the underlying fluid dynamics quantities in the body, from MRI data. Currently, I am testing and developing my methods on 1D synthetic systems. This is to find out what type of systems can be recoverable and what data quality is required for this approach to be successful.

The work is still in the proof of concept stage, but further down the line it is planned to use these methods for the recovery of quantities in liver tissue. If these can then be related to a spatial functionality measure, it would be helpful in liver surgery planning to help recommend patients for treatment.

What did you wish you knew before starting a PhD?

I wish when I started my PhD, I had used a digital notebook. For about the first 3 months I kept a physical notebook for day to day work thoughts, planning and reading notes. After this, I transitioned to keeping a digital notebook for everything relating to my PhD project sorted chronologically and it has made everything so much easier! The ability to search based on specific words is so much more convenient than flipping through many separate books. Also, adding any code snippets and graphic results alongside notes is great to keep everything together.

What are your plans for the future?

I’ve still got about a year and a half left to go so I’m still weighing up my options. After finishing, I would like to stay in research, but it depends what kind of postdoc positions are advertised at that time. I could also see myself going into R&D or data science in industry in the long-term… Although it’s still a while off so plenty of time for things to change!