LIFD Early Career Researcher Spotlight: Jo Kershaw

Thesis title: Regional dynamics in rotating spherical shell convection

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

Supervisors:  Prof. Christopher J Davies, Prof. Steven Tobias and Prof. Jon Mound

Tell us a bit about yourself

I am a third-year post-graduate researcher in the Fluids CDT at the University of Leeds. I left school with A-levels in English and Music but later decided on a change of direction and did a degree in Maths and Physics with the Open University, while working in a primary school. Having been outside of formal education for years I liked the structure and guidance provided by the CDT programme and I gravitated towards fluids after a fascinating introduction to boundary layer problems in the final year of my degree. When I’m not wrestling with numerical simulations I run, knit and play the piano, very badly!

What is your research about?

I’m exploring the flow patterns in the Earth’s outer core which generate the planet’s magnetic field. The buoyancy caused by thermal and compositional convection interacts with rotation to twist and stretch magnetic field lines and maintain a dipolar field. It’s a complex, multi-scaled flow in a difficult geometry which is why I’m focusing on specific regions, starting with the polar region which can be modelled in a cylinder. I’m most interested in the onset of convection and how it develops, depending on the difference in temperature, temperature gradients and velocities of the fluid set on the boundaries of the domain. The results should enable us to make predictions about conditions in the Earth’s core, which are more extreme than we can model directly, and lead to new possibilities for laboratory experiments using rotating cylinders.

What did you wish you had known before starting a PhD?

My O.U. degree taught me a very solitary method of learning and problem solving and it was a while before I discovered how useful it can be when you’re stuck to explain the problem to someone else. I also wish I had known how important it is not to get fixated on one method of approach to a problem. My instinct is to power through but sometimes allowing yourself a break and taking a step back is the only way to see alternative possibilities.

What are your plans for the future?

It the moment I plan to look for a post-doc position, possibly moving from geophysics towards astrophysics and studying the magnetic fields of other planets. My PhD involves pursuing computational solutions but I would also love to discover more about the way experiments can guide and inform numerical models.