Teaching

Advanced Computational Laboratory

This is a 3rd year module teaching a variety of computational methods and applications. My part of the course is 5 credits, and covers software design and practical software development skills for scientific software, with an application to a current research problem. This module component is quite open-ended and primarily an opportunity for students to show what they can do with a real research problem and a computer! For more information, please see this page or the information on the VLE.

Advanced Theoretical Techniques

This is a 10-credit 3rd year module teaching various mathematical and theoretical techniques that are useful in physics. My half of the course concentrates on tensors -- in other words, how physical and mathematical objects behave when we apply a transformation to our coordinates. We introduce several fundamental principles of modern physics, such as Einstein's Principle of General Covariance, and lay the foundations for General Relativity. For more information, please see the information on the VLE.

The atomic structure of materials

This is a demonstration of atomistic dynamics, to illustrate some of the phenomena associated with materials' atomic structure.

First Principles Materials Modelling

This is a 10-credit postgraduate module teaching the fundamentals of materials modelling using quantum mechanics. This module is led by Prof. Matt Probert, and you can find more information here, and the main course page here. My half of the course focuses on the properties you can predict using these techniques, in particular solid-state NMR spectra and EELS.

Graduate Training

I've written three graduate training sessions that may be of interest:

• A Beginner's Guide to Linux
• How to Write a Basic Web Page
• A Beginner's Guide to LaTeX

These courses are aimed at first year Master's or PhD students and do not presume any prior knowledge or experience in the area. Each course is self-contained, and takes approximately 2-3 hours.

As well as the Linux course mentioned above, I've also written a brief description of what I consider to be some of the most useful Linux commands.

Density Functional Theory and CASTEP

My research focuses on the use of density functional theory for materials simulations, and I've written a short introduction to DFT here.

Mathematical Modelling

This is one of my former courses - it's now taught by Dr Gonzalo Vallejo Fernandez. Mathematical Modelling is a 10 credit first year course covering many aspects of modelling real-world phenomena. It runs in the second term, and comprises two lectures a week, three problem classes and weekly problems. The course is taken by all Theoretical Physics students at York, and is also available as an optional module for Experimental Physicists and others; in the past this module has been taken by students from Computer Science, Economics and Mathematics. More details are available here.