Helen Wilson
Professor Helen Wilson
Born1973 (age 50–51)
Warrington, England
CitizenshipUnited Kingdom
AwardsPresident of www.bsr.org.ukBritish Society of Rheology, 2015-2017.
Academic background
Alma materClare College, Cambridge (BA, MMath, PhD)
ThesisShear Flow Instabilities in Viscoelastic Fluids (1998)
Doctoral advisorJohn Rallison[1]
Other advisorsRob Davies
Academic work
Discipline
Institutions
Websiteucl.ac.uk/~ucahhwi/

Helen Jane Wilson,[2] (born 1973), is a British mathematician and the first female Head of Mathematics at University College London (UCL).

Her research focuses on the theoretical and numerical modelling of the flow of non-Newtonian fluids such as polymeric materials and particle suspensions.

Early life and education

Wilson was born in Warrington. Her father, Leslie Knight Wilson was a chartered accountant; her mother, Brenda (née Naylor) a French teacher. She attended Broomfields Junior School and Bridgewater High School. Wilson studied at Clare College, Cambridge, completing a BA, Certificate of Advanced Study in Mathematics (later converted to an MMath) and PhD in mathematics. Her PhD thesis, titled "Shear Flow Instabilities in Viscoelastic Fluids", was supervised by John Rallison. On graduation she moved to the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she began research on suspension mechanics with Rob Davis in the Chemical Engineering department.

Mathematical work

In 2000 Wilson returned to the UK to take up a lectureship in Applied Mathematics at the University of Leeds. In 2004 she moved to UCL,[2] where she is Professor of Applied Mathematics and as of September 2018, Head of Department. Wilson is the first female to hold the position of Head of Mathematics at UCL.[3]

Research in fluid mechanics

Wilson's PhD thesis and early papers focused on instabilities in viscoelastic fluids. She predicted a new instability in channel flow of a shear-thinning fluid[4] which was later discovered experimentally by another group[5] and on which she still works. She has also worked on instabilities in shear-banding flows and in more complex geometries.

Her other major research interest, besides viscoelasticity, is suspension mechanics, and in particular the effect of particle contacts on fluid rheology. Her most recent projects [6] draw these two fields together, investigating the interaction of solid particles with their complex material environment in fields ranging from healthcare to engineering.

Her academic publications are listed on the UCL site.[7]

One of her best-known publications is the paper "The fluid dynamics of the chocolate fountain",[8] co-authored with Adam Townsend.[9] Unusually for a mathematical paper, this was covered in the Washington Post.[10]

Knowledge transfer

Wilson gave the 2019 Joint London Mathematical Society Annual Lecture on "Toothpaste, custard and chocolate: mathematics gets messy".[11]

Problem plastics & how mathematics can help,[12] published in UCL Science and presented at Mathematics Works (Oct 2007).

Public lecture: From gases to gloops: Instabilities in fluids in the UCL Lunch Hour Lecture series on 23 February 2016.[13]

Non-technical articles

Case study for the Royal Society[14] on how a supportive employer can support a mother on her return to work.

Blog post[15] and BBC World TV news interview[16] commenting on the award of the Fields Medal to a female mathematician for the first time.

The D'Hondt method Explained:[17] brief explanation of an easier way to understand the allocation of seats at the European elections

Books

Practical Analytical Methods for PDEs in volume 1 of the LTCC Advanced Mathematics series, World Scientific, 2015.[18]

In 2016, Wilson co-authored with Dame Celia Hoyles a chapter of the book "Mathematics: How It Shaped Our World"[19]

Recognition

Wilson is an editor of the Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics[20] and the Journal of Engineering Mathematics.[21] She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Physics of Fluids.[22]

She was president (for the 2015–2017 term) of the British Society of Rheology[23] the first woman to hold this position.

In 2014 she was a member of the subject panel for Mathematics on ALCAB (the A Level Content Advisory Board), advising on the reforms to A Level Mathematics for first teaching in September 2016.[24]

She was a Council Member and is now the Vice-President (Learned Societies) of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.[25]

Personal life

She is married with two children.

References

  1. ↑ "Professor John Martin Rallison | Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics".
  2. 1 2 "Helen Wilson's UCL home page". Archived from the original on 16 January 2017.
  3. ↑ UCL (1 February 2019). "Spotlight on Professor Helen Wilson". UCL Mathematical & Physical Sciences. Retrieved 4 February 2019.
  4. ↑ Wilson, Helen J; Rallison, John M (1999). "Instability of channel flow of a shear-thinning White-Metzner fluid" (PDF). Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics. 87: 75–96. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.582.7978. doi:10.1016/S0377-0257(99)00012-9.
  5. ↑ Bodiguel, Hugues; Beaumont, Julien; Machado, Anais; Martinie, Laetitia; Kellay, Hamid; Colin, Annie (2015). "Flow Enhancement due to Elastic Turbulence in Channel Flows of Shear Thinning Fluids" (PDF). Physical Review Letters. 114 (2): 028302. Bibcode:2015PhRvL.114b8302B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.028302. PMID 25635567.
  6. ↑ "Prof Helen J Wilson: Homepage". Archived from the original on 16 January 2017.
  7. ↑ "Helen Wilson's publications". Archived from the original on 16 January 2017.
  8. ↑ Townsend, Adam K; Wilson, Helen J. (2015). "The fluid dynamics of the chocolate fountain". European Journal of Physics. 37 (1): 015803. doi:10.1088/0143-0807/37/1/015803.
  9. ↑ "Adam Townsend's web site". Archived from the original on 26 October 2016.
  10. ↑ "Washington Post: Speaking of Science. Someone finally looked into the physics of chocolate fountains". The Washington Post.
  11. ↑ "Toothpaste, Custard and Chocolate: Mathematics Gets Messy". www.gresham.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 October 2019.
  12. ↑ Wilson, Helen. "Problem plastics -and how mathematics can help". UCL. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  13. ↑ Wilson, Helen. "From gases to gloops: instabilities in fluids". UCL Lunch hour lectures. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  14. ↑ Wilson, Helen. "Return to work after maternity leave: departmental actions that eased the transition and therefore made retention so much more likely" (PDF). Royal Society. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  15. ↑ Wilson, Helen. "The Fields Medal: a stepping stone for women in mathematics". UCL. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  16. ↑ BBC TV World News. "Interview with Helen Wilson". Retrieved 5 January 2017 – via YouTube.
  17. ↑ Wilson, Helen. "The D'Hondt Method Explained" (PDF). UCL.
  18. ↑ Helen Wilson (2015). "Practical Analytical Methods for PDEs". In Bullett, S.R.; Fearn, Tom; Smith, Frank (eds.). Advanced Techniques in Applied Mathematics.
  19. ↑ Rooney, David, ed. (22 December 2016). Mathematics: How it Shaped Our World. Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd. ISBN 978-1785510397.
  20. ↑ "Editorial Board - Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics - Journal". Elsevier. 1 January 2021. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  21. ↑ Editorial board, Journal of Engineering Mathematics. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  22. ↑ Editorial advisory board, Physics of Fluids. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  23. ↑ Council, British Society of Rheology'. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  24. ↑ "The A-Level Content Advisory Board". Archived from the original on 6 October 2017.
  25. ↑ "Council Archives". 24 May 2023.
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