Congratulations to Amalia Thomas (m. 2015) a postgraduate student at Christ’s and one of the 2019 winners of the STEM for Britain awards, celebrating outstanding work by early-career researchers in mathematics, engineering and scientists. Amalia won Bronze in the Physical Sciences: Physics, category http://www.setforbritain.org.uk/2019winners.asp
If you’d like to find out more about her research on Force Networks in Photoelastic Avalanches, visit: http://www.setforbritain.org.uk/2019psr/P-THOMAS-5660-PSR.pdf
About Amalia
Amalia is a member of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics in the granular mechanics group, supervised by Dr Nathalie Vriend. Her research is funded by the Royal Society and supported by the Cambridge International Trust.
Amalia's current research interests are the rheology and size segregation of free-surface, dry granular flows. For this purpose she has adapted an experimental technique based on photoelasticity to observe and quantify forces between individual particles in a 2D avalanche. In this way, Amalia investigates the distribution of force chains within granular flows, and how they drive segregation.
Amalia has also taken part in several teaching and public engagement activities for Christ's College, the University of Cambridge and the Royal Society.