Taught courses: 'Contemporary Topics (marine biology pathway)' (70%), 'Biogeochemical Cycles in the Earth System' (68%), 'Introduction to Biological Oceanography' (77%), 'Introduction to Chemical Oceanography' (68%), 'Structure and Dynamics of Marine Communities' (70%).
Research Project: "Temporal issues in habitat mapping for marine conservation - a West Solent case study", supervised by Drs. J.K. Dix and A.C. Jensen. Produced habitat classification maps through analysis and interpretation of acoustic (bathymetric, backscatter) data using ArcGIS, combined with practical boat-based ground-truthing physical and visual sampling) and taxonomic identification of collected species.

Abstract:
Detailed habitat maps underpin marine conservation efforts and rely on a variety of datasets ranging from the geophysical to the biological. Gathering this information takes time and money so making use of legacy data is highly advantageous. This study has drawn upon the historical records that exist for the West Solent region, combined with recent fieldwork, to derive a habitat map based upon the EUNIS biotope classification scheme. In the course of the study, any temporal issues and the timescales upon which they operate have been investigated. The conclusions of substrate and biological stability support the utility of legacy data to inform decisions for marine conservation endeavours.

Thesis title: "Theory of Spin Effects in Radiation Chemistry". Supervised by Dr. N.J.B. Green.

Abstract:
As ionizing radiation passes through a liquid it deposits energy in discrete events. These subsequently develop into clusters of highly reactive ionized and excited species, known as 'spurs'. The non-homogeneous kinetics that results from the diffusion and reaction of these species are complicated by the small numbers of particles in the spur and by the fact that they are free radicals with unpaired spins. Most theories of radiation chemistry ignore spin by considering all reactions to be diffusion-controlled. Others, such as the Radical Pair Mechanism and the Stochastic Liouville equation, are restricted to a single pair. This thesis describes the generalisation of existing theories to account for multi-body spin effects.

A stochastic modelling approach, based on a Monte Carlo random flights model, has been developed and tested against numerical solutions of the Stochastic Liouville equation. The spin wavefunction of the spur evolves under the influence of external magnetic fields, exchange and hyperfine interactions. The evolution is complicated by the time-dependence of the spin Hamiltonian, which arises from the dependence of the exchange interaction on the inter-particle separations. This necessitates the simultaneous integration of the Schrödinger equation as the particles diffuse, which is computationally expensive as the diffusive trajectories must be discretized finely enough for the integration to converge.

The efficiency of the simulation can be vastly improved by reducing the size of the spin Hamiltonian. The basis set contraction is achieved through the use of permutation group theory to block the spin Hamiltonian in terms of subspaces labelled by the total spin angular momentum number. In addition to the effects of spin on the non-homogeneous kinetics, other spin-based phenomena such as polarisations in the EPR spectra of escaped radicals and quantum beats in fluorescence have been observed experimentally. Their origin and dependence on the aforementioned interactions has been investigated.

Final year project: "Application of Lie Groups and Clifford Algebras to the Valence Bond Method". Supervised by Dr. M.A. Robb.

Abstract:
The aim of this project has been to apply group theoretical methods to the valence bond treatment of benzene in order to analyse the problem quantitatively in such a way as to preserve the rigour of valence bond theory yet make the mathematics involved more simple and concise.