Martin Dove

Background: I studied Physics at both BSc and PhD level at the University of Birmingham. My student days were followed by post-doctoral positions in the Department of Physics at the University of Edinburgh and in the Department of Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. In 2006 I became a lecturer in the Mineral Physics group of the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, and was appointed as Reader in Computational Mineral Physics in October 2000.

Present: Since October 2003 I have held the post of Professor of Computational Mineral Physics in the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge. From January 2002 I have also held the post of Director of the National Institute for Environmental eScience (NIEeS, funded by NERC and based in Cambridge). I also lead the NERC-funded eMinerals and DTI-funded MaterialsGrid consortia projects.

Topics: My main science interests have always included phase transitions, such as orientational order/disorder, displacive, and cation site ordering phase transitions. This work has been expanded to include studies of glasses (including the link between glasses and crystals), adsorption of molecules on surfaces, and radiation damage studies in support of work on encapsulation of nuclear waste materials.

Techniques: I have always sought to run parallel computational, theoretical and experimental programmes. Within my computational programmes I have also attempted to use a wide variety of techniques, including lattice energy, lattice dynamics, molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo. Much of my current computational work includes research into escience and grid computing methods. My experimental programme is entirely based on neutron scattering, including diffraction, total scattering and spectroscopy.