Mathematical Sciences Home Page

Research Interests and Activity

Topics in Numerical Analysis and Mathematical Modelling, including

Large Sparse Matrix Computations and Eigenvalue Problems
Hopf Bifurcations in Mixed FEM Methods for N-S problems
Evolving Networks

Current/Recent Ph D students at Bath

Sarah Mitchell, handed me the draft of her PhD thesis on "Coupling Transport and Chemistry in groundwater flow" on April Fool's Day 2003! Thankfully all was well and she is now a lecturer at the University of Limerick, Ireland, after post-docs at University of Cape Town, South Africa, and at UBC, Vancouver.
Jörg Berns-Müller worked on "Large Sparse Eigenvalue Problems ". He now has a position in a software house in Germany.
Zivko Stoyanov started in August 2004 and submitted in Oct 2008. Currently, he has a post-doc position at Reading.
Andre Leger worked on "Mathematical and Numerical modelling of digestion in the small intestine". He successfully submitted his thesis on 3rd June 2005. He now works in the City of London earning much more money than I do!
Melina Freitag started in October 2004. She submitted her thesis in September 2007 on `Inexact Methods for Large Sparse Eigenvalue Problems'. She was a Research Fellow at Bath working on data assimilation from 2007 to 2010, and is now a colleague at Bath.
Richard Akinola started in April 2007, and passed his viva in June 2010.
Jack Blake started in October 2011 on a project on neutron transport and reactor criticality, sponsored by EPSRC and AMEC Foster Wheeler. Jack had to put up with both me and Ivan Graham as supervisors. He completed in April 2016 and now works for IBM.

Parallel methods for PDE Eigenvalue Problems

Ivan Graham and I worked on a joint research project on "Parallel methods for PDE Eigenvalue problems". Inititially this work was funded by EPSRC. Dr Eero Vainikko (Tartu, Estonia) was also involved. If you want to know more about this project click here for our web page.

Algorithms for Network Simulation in Bioinformatics

Professor Des Higham (University of Strathclyde), Professor Peter Grindrod and I had an EPSRC supported project on "Network Simulations in Bioinformatics". Zivko Stoyanov started a PhD on this topic in the summer of 2004. He successfully submitted his thesis in 2008 and was a post-doc on the EPSRC project "Theory and tools for complex biological systems" from November 2007 till October 2010.

Papers on Numerical Bifurcation: LMS Meeting, CLAPDE, Durham, 2008

Click here for a copy of Cliffe, Spence and Tavener "Acta Numerica" (2008).
Click here for a copy of Spence and Graham "Numerical Methods for Bifurcation Problems" (1998).

Bath/RAL Numerical Analysis Day

The 1st Bath/RAL NADay was held on 4th November 2002 in Bath. Click here to view the programme.
The 2nd Bath/RAL NADay was held on 26th September 2003 at RAL. Click here to view the programme.
The 3rd Bath/RAL NADay was held on 1st October 2004 in Bath. Click here to view the programme.
The 4th Bath/RAL NADay was held on 27th September 2005 at RAL. Click here to view the programme.
The 5th Bath/RAL NADay was held on 18th September 2006 in Bath. Click here to view the programme.
The 6th Bath/RAL NADay was held on 25th September 2007 at RAL. Click here to view the programme.
The 7th Bath/RAL NADay was held on 23th September 2008 at Bath. Click here to view the programme.
The 8th Bath/RAL NADay was held on 29th September 2009 at RAL. Click here to view the programme.
The 9th Bath/RAL NADay was held on 28th September 2010 at Bath. Click here to view the programme.
The 10th Bath/RAL NADay was held on 30th January 2012 at RAL. Click here to view the programme.
The 11th Bath/RAL NADay was held on 28th January 2013 at Bath Click here to view the programme.

Leslie Fox Prize

I was Chairman of the panel for the 12th Leslie Fox Prize which was held in Dundee on Monday 27th June 2005.

Informal Numerical Analysis seminars

At 12.15pm on most Fridays in the semester we hold an informal seminar in numerical analysis.

Mathematical Sciences Home Page: Professor Alastair Spence

Teaching page