Staff Update August 2022

There have been some recent changes to staff at LightForm, with two additions to the team, and one leaving.

Dr Christopher Fullerton has joined LightForm as our new research software engineer. Chris studied physics at The University of Oxford, before completing a PhD in theoretical and computational physics at The University of Manchester. He has worked as a postdoctoral researcher on a range of problems in statistical physics and soft matter, and more recently he worked in respiratory physiology, developing models and writing software to extract diagnostic medical information from detailed measurements of the molecules flowing in and out of a patient’s mouth. Chris’s work in LightForm is to assist with the ongoing development of MatFlow and hpcFlow, helping to bring them to a wider audience within the materials engineering research community.

Dr Gideon Obasi has joined LightForm as a post-doctoral research associate at the beginning of June. He obtained his doctorate degree from The University of Manchester with thesis on variant selection and its effect on texture in Ti-6Al-4V alloy. A key aspect of his research has been to establish an empirical understanding of the relationship between manufacturing parameters – microstructure evolution – performance and degradation mechanisms (hydrogen embrittlement) in the presence of a hydrogenating environment. In LightForm, Gideon working on the characterisation of texture evolution in dual phase titanium alloys subjected to uniaxial compression at different test temperatures and strain rate.  This work will provide better understand of texture development under compression, which currently is not well understood. We look forward to working with Gideon over the next year.

LightForm post-doctoral research associate Dr Thomas Jailin has recently been awarded a lectureship at the University of Clermont-Auvergne in France. Thomas obtained his PhD in mechanical engineering at the University of Lyon (France), where his work was focused on the thermomechanical behaviour of fuel claddings made of zirconium alloy during fast thermal transients. Subsequently, Thomas joined LighForm as a post-doctoral researcher.  A major part of his work was related to the study of the warm formability of aluminium alloys, using both an experimental and a numerical approach. He was also involved in other projects where he developed for instance a crack detection method based on digital image correlation, or where he worked on the creep age forming of an aluminium alloy. Thomas will begin his lectureship in mechanical engineering in September and will join the Institut Pascal to continue his research. Everyone at LightForm wishes him all the best for this new chapter in his career!