PG students
Leo Bidussi
University of Edinburgh
Supervisor: Jelle Hartong
Leo is from Trieste, Italy. He received his BSc and MSc in
Theoretical Physics at the University of Perugia. His Master
thesis, supervised by Marta Orselli and Niels Obers, was
about non-relativistic geometries in the context of the AdS/CFT
Correspondence. He is now a PhD student at the University of
Edinburgh under the supervision of Jelle Hartong. His research
is focused on the study of classical and quantum strings moving
in a non-relativistic target space.
Loïc Bramley
Heriot-Watt University
Supervisors: Lotte Hollands, Tudor Dimofte
Loïc grew up in Canada and Germany before completing an
integrated master's degree in mathematical physics at the University
of Oxford. He is interested in the development and use of dictionaries
between geometry, topology and algebra, and supersymmetric quantum
theory, in order to better understand (the codifications of) the
underlying structures in physics and mathematics. Outside of academia,
and amongst other things, Loïc cares about literature, philosophy and
music composition.
Alice Clark
Heriot-Watt University
Supervisor: Christian Sämann
Alice was born in South Wales, UK. She did an undergraduate
degree in Experimental and Theoretical Physics at the University
of Cambridge, before completing part III of the Mathematical
Tripos in her fourth year. Her part III essay, supervised by Paul
Townsend, was a review of the BFSS M(atrix) model of
M-theory. After a year of working as an Android engineer at
RealVNC Ltd., she moved to Heriot-Watt in 2014 to start her PhD
with Christian Saemann. Her research interests include the
dynamics of M-branes in M-theory and the role of geometry in
descriptions of physical systems.
Alec Cooper
Heriot-Watt University
Supervisor: Robert Weston
Alec is from Crawley, West Sussex, in the UK. He completed his
integrated MSci degree in Physics at the University of Bristol in
2016; the title of his Masters project in theoretical optics (under
Professor Mark Dennis) being "Polarisation Singularities in
Anisotropic Crystal Optics". After turning down a PhD offer from NTU,
he took a year out of academia, during which, among other part-time
roles, he enjoyed tutoring A-Level students, before joining Heriot
Watt for his PhD in 2017. He is currently studying under Professor
Robert Weston, using representation theory of q-deformed algebras in
an attempt to derive Baxter TQ-relations for open quantum spin
chains.
Noah Dizep
Heriot-Watt University
Supervisors: Murad Alim and Richard Szabo
Noah is from Austria, where he finished his BSc and MSc in
mathematical physics within the collaboration programme between
the Technical University of Graz and Graz University. In autumn
of 2024, he began his PhD within the AGQ CDT under the joint
supervision of Prof. Szabo and Prof. Alim. He is mainly
interested in tackling questions arising in modern physics with
Algebro-Geometric methods, with an emphasis on Enumerative
Geometry. Outside of academia, he likes to play tennis, chess and
make music.
Mehran Jalali Farahani
Heriot-Watt University
Supervisor: Christian Sämann
Mehran grew up in Tehran, Iran. He did an undergraduate degree in
physics at University of Tehran and continued his study at
Heriot-Watt University as a Ph.D. student in mathematical
physics. His research is focused on non-abelian gerbes under
supervision of Prof. Christian Saemann. More generally, He is
interested in higher category theory, higher geometry, and
foundations of physics.
Jarah Fluxman
University of Edinburgh
Supervisor: José Figueroa-O'Farrill
Jarah grew up in South Africa. He studied mathematics and physics
at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg before
moving to the UK to do Part III of the Cambridge University
Mathematical Tripos. He is now a PhD student at the University of
Edinburgh under the supervision of José
Figueroa-O’Farrill. Jarah’s research centres around Lie Theory
and Cartan Geometry with a focus towards classifying spacetimes
as homogeneous spaces of certain symmetry groups. He also
maintains an interest in the analytical foundations of Quantum
Theory.
Benjamin Haake
University of Edinburgh
Supervisor: Tudor Dimofte
Benjamin grew up in Germany, receiving his BSc and MSc in Physics
at the University of Heidelberg. Under the guidance of Matthias
Bartelmann and Johannes Walcher he worked on modified theories of
gravity and higher gauge theory. Since 2022, he is working as a
PhD student at the University of Edinburgh supervised by Tudor
Dimofte. His research interests include TQFTs, generalized
symmetries, and anomalies.
Sonja Klisch
University of Edinburgh
Supervisor: Tim Adamo
Sonja grew up near Hannover, Germany, and later Nottingham,
UK. She completed her Bachelors and Masters degrees in
Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, culminating in an
essay on Wess-Zumino-Witten Models. From January 2021, she will
be a Ph.D. student at the University of Edinburgh, supervised by
Tim Adamo. Her research interests are QFTs in strong background
fields, with a dash of integrability and twistor theory!
Ross McDonald
University of Edinburgh
Supervisor: Joan Simón
Ross was born in Harare, Zimbabwe, and grew up in Zambia. He read
Physics at Merton College, Oxford, graduating with an MMathPhys in
2021. His research studies the relationship between quantum
information and the geometry of spacetime.
Subrabalan Murugesan
Heriot-Watt University
Supervisor: Lotte Hollands
Subrabalan (Subri) is a mathematical physicist working at the
intersection of supersymmetric gauge theories, topology and
geometry. In particular, he is trying to understand the so-called
class S theories and their connection to integrable
systems. Outside physics, his interests include hiking,
bouldering and cooking.
Jørgen Musaeus
University of Edinburgh
Supervisor: Jelle Hartong
Jørgen grew up in Denmark, where he received his MSc at the Niels
Bohr Institute studying 2+1 dimensional non-relativistic gravity
under the supervision of Niels Obers and Gerben Oling. Jørgen is
now a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh under the
supervision of Jelle Hartong. His research is currently focused
on applying a recently developed theory of non-relativistic
gravity to attain a covariant formulation of the post-Newtonian
approximation of general relativity.
Virinchi Rallabhandi
University of Edinburgh
Supervisor: James Lucietti
Virinchi hails from the warm climes of Perth, Australia. His
tertiary education began with undergraduate studies in physics
and maths at the University of Western Australia. He then
continued at the same institution, attaining a Master of Physics
supervised by Sergei Kuzenko and Evgeny Buchbinder. In 2021,
Virinchi relocated to England for Part III of the Mathematical
Tripos at the University of Cambridge. Since September 2022, he
has been a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, exploring
various mathematical topics regarding black holes, under the
supervision of James Lucietti.
Benjamin Strittmatter
University of Edinburgh
Supervisor: Joan Simón
Benjamin grew up in Baden in the south of Germany. He was
educated in physics at ETH Zurich and in mathematics at the
University of Geneva, holding MSc degrees in both
disciplines. Originally trained in black hole astrophysics, his
research now evolves around quantum gravity and holography, where
he is interested in addressing aspects of black hole information
using methods in conformal field theory.
Iustin Surubaru
University of Edinburgh
Supervisor: Tim Adamo
Iustin is from Romania and completed an integrated master's in
theoretical physics at Oxford. His work focuses on understanding
algebraic or geometric structures in scattering amplitudes in
anything but four-dimensional space-times. The connections
between amplitudes and twistor theory are at the core of his
research. Part of the questions sought are motivated by or
directly related to celestial/twisted holography.
Girish Vishwa
University of Edinburgh
Supervisor: José Figueroa-O'Farrill
Girish grew up in Singapore and Bangalore but is originally from
Chennai, India. He completed his MSci at Imperial College London and
his MSc at the University of Edinburgh, after which he commenced his
PhD in November 2020 with his MSc project supervisor, José
Figueroa-O’Farrill. He is interested in algebraic and representation
theoretic aspects of string theory. In particular, his research
focuses on using vertex operator algebras and homological methods to
better understand non-relativistic string theories. Apart from
mathematics and physics, Girish enjoys sports. He used to be a
competitive badminton player, but is now actively involved in
bouldering and roped climbing while also practising calisthenics.
Ioannis Georgios Vogiatzis
University of Edinburgh
Supervisor: José Figueroa-O'Farrill
Ioannis (Giannis) grew up in the small town of Koufalia,
Greece. He studied physics at Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki and then moved to the Netherlands to study
theoretical physics at the University of Amsterdam. In September
of 2024 he started his PhD in the mathematical physics group at
the University of Edinburgh, under the supervision of Jose
Figueroa-O’Farrill. He is primarily interested in various
aspects of non-Lorentzian physics, with an emphasis on different
spacetime geometries. Outside of physics, Giannis likes sports
and playing music.