From 1977 to 1980 I was a postdoc at Trinity College Dublin, where I continued working on glaciology, and also started work on mantle convection, a subject which I still pursue.
After that, I went to M.I.T., first as Instructor, and then as
Assistant Professor (in the Mathematics Department). I left M.I.T.
in 1985 to take up a University lecturership in Mathematics at
Oxford University,
together with a
Fellowship
at Corpus Christi College.
In 1999 I was appointed Adjunct Professor in the University of
Limerick, and from November 2007, I was appointed Stokes
Professor in Limerick, in association with the creation of the
Mathematics Applications Consortium for Science and Industry
(MACSI).
While I get excited by the mathematical analysis which occurs in solving practical problems, my overriding concern is that the physical problem should be solved in a form which is of interest and of use to the applied scientist. Not that I'm always successful in this endeavour.
A reasonable list of my different research areas is given below:
Glaciology:
glacier flow, ice sheet dynamics, basal sliding, subglacial hydrology.
Geophysics: mantle convection, dynamics of the earth's core, solidification processes in magma chambers, magma transport, frost heave.
Industrial: applications (e.g. at Oxford Study Group), two phase flow, alloy solidification.
Nonlinear systems and asymptotics: chaos in differential equations, turbulence, shear flows, convection. Time series analysis. Differential-delay equations. Asymptotic methods.
Medical and biological: respiratory and cardiac physiology, blood cell physiology, immunology.
Published by C.U.P. in December 1997, this book addresses the same themes in mathematical modelling as Alan Tayler's book, Mathematical models in applied mechanics (O.U.P. 1986), with the difference that there is a wider variety of applications, in industry, the environment and life sciences, and the general aim is to treat each problem area in some depth. For reviews, see here.
This book was published by Springer in July, 2011. It is a compendium of a number of topics in geoscience, including climate, oceans, atmospheres, geomorphology, glaciology, groundwater and mantle and magma dynamics. For reviews, see here.
I have been a regular lecturer at the summer school on the Dynamics of glaciers and ice sheets on `Sliding, drainage and basal processes'. This school has been held approximately biennially in the Alps since 1995. It is an ideal way in which glaciology students can broaden their understanding of the subject in a friendly, stimulating, and otherwise terrific environment.