LIFD Early Career Researcher Spotlight: Arthur Scott

Thesis title: Nonlinear interactions between fluid flows inside and outside of sea ice

School/Faculty: CDT in Fluid Dynamics, School of Computing

Supervisors: Dr Srikanth Toppaladoddi (Maths), Dr Sam Pegler (Maths), Dr Andrew Ross (Earth and Environment)

Tell us a bit about yourself:

I’m currently in the 2nd year of the Fluid Dynamics CDT course (so 1st year of actual PhD research). My undergraduate degree was in Mathematics and Philosophy also at the University of Leeds, after which I briefly left for a year to do an MSc in Applied Mathematics at the University of Manchester. It was there that I properly studied fluid dynamics in various modules which inspired me to carry on into a PhD.

Outside of my research I enjoy hiking, running, and bouldering at the climbing gym, as well as watching films at the local Hyde Park Picture House.

What is your research about?

Sea ice consists of many ice crystal dendrites immersed in brine - a medium known in the fluid dynamics community as a ‘mushy layer’. When sea ice solidifies from above both the mushy layer itself and the underlying ocean are prone to two forms of natural convection: thermal and compositional. The often turbulent ocean flow also imposes a shear force at the mush-ocean interface, regardless of convective effects. Both convection and turbulent flow shear are highly nonlinear processes and their interactions with sea ice in climate models are still not fully understood. I am using a combination of numerical and analytical methods to gain insight into the various interesting features of sea ice and to formulate simplified mathematical models.

What did you wish you knew before starting a PhD?

That self-organisation, to whatever extent that it is personally necessary, is key. I’d always been a fairly sporadic worker but this approach is untenable when working on such a long-term, complicated project as a PhD. Having said that, I’m not an advocate of demanding specific organisational approaches from every individual - I’ve wasted countless hours trying to ‘optimize my workflow’ for marginal gains. My general advice would be to find a level of organisation which works for you early on and stick to it without worrying about other people’s.

What are your plans for the future?

I have a bit longer than two years to go for my PhD so it’s too soon to say any definite plans. I’d potentially be interested in a post-doc depending on how far my research comes in the actual PhD, but currently I have no intention of going into a fluids-based industry. A potential career path I’d be interested in is video game development and the various transferable skills gained from a PhD would make this transition relatively easy.