Dr. Robert J. Whittaker

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Personal Information

I am a lecturer in applied mathematics, working in the School of Mathematics at the University of East Anglia, Norwich.

From 2007-2010 I worked at the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (OCIAM), first as a postdoc (working with Sarah Waters) and later as a lecturer. During the same period, I was also a Junior Research Fellow at St. Catherine's College in the University of Oxford.

Previously I spent a year as a research fellow at the Centre for Mathematical Medicine and Biology at the University of Nottingham, also working with Sarah Waters. Before that, I was a PhD student in DAMTP at the University of Cambridge, supervised by John Lister.

You may be interested in my text file of Linux and LaTeX tips. I've also written a few LaTeX packages, which contain various useful commands and macros.

Research Interests

My EPSRC-funded postdoctoral work with Sarah Waters involved doing asymptotic analysis of time-dependent 3D flows in collapsible elastic tubes (think blood flow). Related numerical work, as part of the same project, is being done by Matthias Heil at the University of Manchester. For further details see my collapsible tubes page.

As a result of the study-group problem Optimisation of fluid distribution inside a porous construct, I have done some work modelling the fluid flow and nutrient transport inside tissue engineering bioreactors. I also have a more recent interest in flow in curved tubes, and have co-supervised a summer student looking theoretically at how ultra-sound measurements can be used to estimate flow rates in vivo.

For my PhD I looked at various problems of highly viscous thermal convection, with a view to better understanding some of the processes which occur inside the earth. My dissertation was entitled Theoretical Solutions for Convective Flows in Geophysically Motivated Regimes.

PhD and MMath Projects

Specific PhD projects will be advertised on the UEA website, but if you are interested in doing a PhD or MMath project in any of these areas then please get in touch. I would be happy to discuss things further with any interested students.

Recent Publications

The Energetics of Flow through a Rapidly Oscillating Tube with Slowly Varying Amplitude
Robert J. Whittaker, Matthias Heil & Sarah L. Waters, 2011.
Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A 369 (1947), 2989–3006.
Predicting the Onset of High-Frequency Self-Excited Oscillations in Elastic-Walled Tubes
Robert J. Whittaker, Matthias Heil, Oliver E. Jensen & Sarah L. Waters, 2010.
Proceedings of the Royal Society A 466 (2124), 3635–3657.
A Rational Derivation of a Tube Law from Shell Theory
Robert J. Whittaker, Matthias Heil, Oliver E. Jensen & Sarah L. Waters, 2010.
Quarterly Journal of Mechanics and Applied Mathematics 63 (4), 465–496.
The Energetics of Flow through a Rapidly Oscillating Tube. Part 1. General Theory
Robert J. Whittaker, Sarah L. Waters, Oliver E. Jensen, Jonathan Boyle & Matthias Heil, 2010
Journal of Fluid Mechanics 648, 83–121.
The Energetics of Flow through a Rapidly Oscillating Tube. Part 2. Application to an Elliptical Tube
Robert J. Whittaker, Matthias Heil, Jonathan Boyle, Oliver E. Jensen & Sarah L. Waters, 2010
Journal of Fluid Mechanics 648, 123–153.

Full list of publications, presentations, etc. …

Academic Qualifications and Distinctions

Contact Details

Postal Address
School of Mathematics
University of East Anglia
Norwich Research Park
Norwich
NR4 7TJ
Office Telephone
+44 (0)1603 592587
Email Address
r.whittaker@(nospam)uea.ac.uk
Personal Website
http://robert.mathmos.net/