The Boring Facts....

Date of Birth:

Place of Birth:

Education

• Dipl.-Phys. (1st degree in Physics), Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, Germany, 1988
• Dr. rer. nat. (PhD in Physics), Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen , Germany, 1991

Career

• 1986-1988 Max-Planck-Institut fuer Stroemungsforschung (M.-P.-Inst. of Fluid Dynamics; I conducted the research on the stability of vortex pairs for my 1st degree, Diplom-Physiker, there while being registered at Goettingen University), Goettingen, Germany
• 1988-1991 Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR, German Aerospace Research Esatblishment, Goettingen, Germany; I conducted research on the motion of LDA tracer particles across aerodynamics shocks for my PhD thesis there while being registered at Goettingen University)
• 1992-1995 Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge (I was post doc in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Group for 3.5 years. This is where I became interested in rotating flows; which is still one of my main research areas today)
• 1995- School of Engineering , University of Warwick, Coventry (I was initially Warwick Research Fellow for six years, then promoted to Reader in October 2001 and promoted to Professor in October 2008)

Research Interests

• Rotating Flows
• Boundary Layers (Laminar-Turbulent Transition)
• Vortex Stability
• Oceanographic Coastal Currents
• Particle-Laden Flows
• ... and a bit of MHD flows ... All topics studied mostly experimentally but have done a bit of numerical simulation and theory too. See titles of my publications to get a more indepth overview.

Professional Affiliations

• European Mechanics Society
• American Physical Society, Division of Fluid Dynamics
• Ludwig-Prandtl-Gesellschaft e.V., Germany

Research Contracts

• May 2009 - February 2011, A Laboratory-Scale, Versatile Experimental Facility for Aluminium Smelting Process, Joint project with University of Coventry, Principal Investigator at Warwick: P.J. Thomas, Principal Investigator at Coventry: S. Molokov, Research Grant Awarded by Aluminium Pechiney Laboratoire des Fabrications, value £ 12,235.

• December 2008 - November 2009, Scalable Wirelessly Interconnected Flow-Control Technology (SWIFT), Principal Investigator: D. A. Lockerby, Co-Investigators: Y.M Chung, J. A. Covington, P. J. Thomas Research Grant Awarded by EPSRC, value £ 170,000.

• January 2007 - March 2009, Reduction of Energy Consumption in Aluminium Smelting, Joint project with University of Coventry, Principal Investigator at Warwick: P.J. Thomas, Principal Investigator at Coventry: S. Molokov, Research Grant Awarded by Carbon Trust / Mercia Fund, total value £ 448,517 of which £ 166,553 for experiments as Warwick.

• October 2004 - September 2007, Scaling Propreties in Particle-Laden Flows, Principal Investigator: P.J. Thomas, Co-Investigator: T. Mullin (U. of Manchester), Research Grant Awarded by EPSRC, value £ 165,738 at Warwick (& approx. £ 100,000 at Manchester).

• October 2004 - September 2007, Near-Wall Flow Structures in 3D Turbulent Boundary Layers, Principal Investigator: P.W. Carpenter, Co-Investigator in alphabetical order: A.J. Cooper (Cardiff) C. Davies (Cardiff), S.C. Li (Warwick), P.J. Thomas (Warwick), Research Grant Awarded by EPSRC, value £ 240,377.

• April 2002 - Sept. 2003, Extension to Computational and Experimental Study of the Hydrodynamics of Compliant Walls in Marine Environments, Principal Investigator: P.W. Carpenter, Co-Investigators: P.J. Thomas, Research Grant Awarded by QinetiQ (Farnborough), value £ 14,120.

• April 2001 - March 2004, Experimental and Computational Study of the Dynamics and the Stability of Vortex Rings in a Rotating Fluid, Principal Investigator: P.J. Thomas, Co-Investigators: A.D. Lucey & P.W. Carpenter, Research Grant Awarded by EPSRC, value £ 154,764.

• May 2000, Experiments on Gravity-Driven Surface Currents Simulating Fresh-Water River Discharges into the Ocean, Grant awarded through the Laboratoire des Ecoulements G\'eophysique et Industriels (LEGI) from funds available through their EEC, Access to Major Infrastructures grant. Principal Investigator: P.J. Thomas, Sponsor: EEC/LEGI, value Five weeks research time utilizing the Coriolis facility. All expenses (use of facility, technical personnel, travel, accommodation, subsistence etc.) for Thomas + 2 European colleagues are covered, value ECU 45,259 = £ 27,700.

• April 2000 - March 2002, Laminar-Turbulent Transition of Fully Three-Dimensional Boundary Layers, Royal Society Joint Project Grant for collaboration with the Institut de Recherche sur les Ph\'enomenes Hors Equilibre, Universit\'es d'Aix Marseille I et II, Marseille, France Project Leader (UK): P.J. Thomas, Project Leader (France): P. Le Gal, Sponsor: Royal Society, value £ 9,800.

• Sept. 1999 - Sept. 2002, Computational and Experimental Study of the Hydrodynamics of Compliant Walls in Marine Environments, Principal Investigator: P.W. Carpenter, Co-Investigators: A.D Lucey, P.J. Thomas, Sponsor: DERA, value £ 52,710.

• April 1998 - March 2001, The Interaction of Granular Flow with the Boundary-Layer Flow Over a Rotating Surface, Principal Investigator: P.J. Thomas, Co-Investigators: P.W. Carpenter, Research Grant Awarded by EPSRC, value £ 99,255.

• April 1998 - March 2000, Further Study of Transition and Turbulence in 3D Boundary Layers over Compliant Walls, Principal Investigator : P.W. Carpenter, Co-Investigators: P.J. Thomas, Research Grant Awarded by EPSRC, value £ 117,016.

• Oct. 1997 - Sept 1999, The Use of Wall Compliance to Prevent Caviation Damage, Principal Investigator: P.W. Carpenter, Co-Investigators: P.J. Bryanston-Cross, P.J. Thomas, Research Grant Awarded by EPSRC, value £ 107,291.

• 1997, Experiments in 2-D Turbulence, Principal Investigator: P.J. Thomas, Research Grant awarded by the Royal Society, value £ 5,113

Miscellaneous other Grants and Support Received

• 2004, Travel Grant awarded by the Royal Society to attend the 21st International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Warsaw, Poland, 15-21 August, value £ 886

• 1997, Travel Grant awarded by the Royal Society to attend the 50th Annual Meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics of the American Physical Society, San Francisco, USA, 23-25 November, value £ 665

• 1996, Travel Grant awarded by the Royal Society to attend the 19th International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Kyoto, Japan, 25-31 August, value £ 1000

• 1996, Grant awarded by the Royal Society to enable Dr. A. Petrosyan, Russian Academy of Science, Space Research Institute, Moscow to visit the University of Warwick, value £ 1260

Prizes

• IUTAM (International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics) Bureau Prize in Fluid Mechanics for the outstanding contributed presentation by a younger scientist at the XIXth International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (Kyoto, Japan, August 25-31, 1996)
• Now, this one was so long ago it can almost not be considered as true anymore, but I list it anyway. I was the winner of a 3rd prize in the German Mathematics Competition for Schools in 1979.

Teaching Interests

• ES1801 1st-Year Mathematics for Engineers
• ES2A71 2nd-Year Fluid Mechanics
• ES3D6 3rd-Year Fundamental Fluid Mechanics for Mechanical Engineers

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