PhD Student Placements Case Studies

Callum Boocock is a PhD student in computational Astrophysics at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), within the STFC-funded Data Intensive Science Centre in the South East Physics Network (DISCnet) Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT), which is run by the Universities of Southampton, Sussex, Portsmouth, Queen Mary University of London, and Open University. Calum’s research is based on running large scale simulations of the solar atmosphere to help solve the mystery of the coronal heating problem.

Interferometric SAR (InSAR) comprises with a set of techniques that allow the estimation of millimetric-movements of the ground. These measurements take place in a set of locations over the area of interest and can be shown as 3D point clouds. Every measurement represents a time-series of displacements, so that the point cloud contains multiple information for each point, and this technique has been applied for many land covers and infrastructures.

The focus of Callum’s internship is on applying these methods to bridges. Bridges are critical infrastructures that need careful and regular maintenance, and their structural health can be inferred with InSAR techniques, which can show anomalous displacements that can be used in early-warning systems to alert inspectors.  Callum’s internship is highly innovative and is based on exploring deep learning techniques to predict anomalous behaviours of this critical infrastructure.