Professor Alan Drew

Profile

Professor Alan Drew was appointed Leverhulme Fellow in the Centre for Condensed Matter & Materials Physics in 2008. He was rapidly promoted to Senior Lecturer (2011) and then Reader (2012), and in 2018 was promoted to Professor. Prof. Drew has been awarded a number of prestigious fellowships and awards over his career, starting with a Fellowship of the Royal Commission of the Exhibition of 1851 (2004), Leverhulme Fellow (2008), European Research Council (ERC) Fellow (2012), Talent 1000 Scholar of the Chinese Ministry of Education (2014) and Changjiang Distinguished Professor at Sichuan University (2015). 

His historical research interests are using spin sensitive and structural probes situated at central facilities to characterise and understand the fundamental properties of materials, with applications in areas such as spin and charge carrier dynamics in organic and biological materials, energy materials, spintronics, novel quantum states and biomass nanostructured carbons. Recently, he has been working on radiation detection (x-rays and gammas, but also applicable to any ionising radiation) - specifically using organic-inorganic hybrid systems to detect radiation both optically and electrically.

Teaching

Projects (2021-22)

Time frequency analysis of musical instruments (BSc / MSci)

This project will develop computer code (in Matlab) to analyse the frequency, or pitch, content of the sounds produced by musical instruments. There are three methods to be considered, each building on the knowledge gained in previous methods.

1. Fourier Analysis: The classic method, using Fourier analysis, identifies fundamentals and overtones of individual notes. The project will develop codes and understanding to undertake Fourier transforms that are able to identify the note played  (e.g A, B, C etc.) and the instrument on which it is played.
2. Spectrograms: This second method analyses the changes in fundamental frequencies and overtones over time as several notes are played (i.e time dependent Fourier analysis). Spectrograms produce a time-frequency description of a musical passage, which might be a more  accurate way to determine the instrument being played.
3. Scalograms: This third method produces far more detailed time-frequency descriptions within the region of the time-frequency plane typically occupied by musical sounds, typically using wavelets as the primary analysis tool. Scalograms allow one to zoom in on selected regions of the time-frequency plane in a more flexible manner than is possible with spectrograms. They have a natural interpretation of musical scale, as they can be more useful than the spectrogram for analysing real-world signals with features occurring at different scales — for example, signals with slowly varying events punctuated by abrupt transients.

Depending on progress in the project, it is anticipated that all three of these techniques could be used. It is anticipated that they will be  used to analyse music played on a piano and a guitar (plus any other instrument at the student’s discretion – or even voice!). The two time-frequency methods, spectrograms and scalograms, will be compared to the classic Fourier approach.

Software for analysing muon spin rotation/relaxation/resonance data (BSc / MSci)

This project will develop computer code (in Matlab) to analyse time dependent muon spin  rotation/relaxation/resonance (MuSR) data taken at central facilities. It will involve creating read-in routines of raw detector counts, and correctly handling the data to robustly form physically meaningful quantities. An understanding of the physics of the MuSR instruments, MuSR measurements and muon physics will be developed by the student. The project will then develop appropriate physically meaningful models to fit to some simple data from a material physics background (e.g a semiconductor or metal), and a comparison to standard software will be made to benchmark the developed software. Depending on progress, the project could be extended to more challenging physics problems, more complex analysis methods (e.g frequency-time analysis) or developing physical models for the parameters extracted from fitting the muon data.

Technological solutions to climate change (Review)

This project will review the causes and drivers of climate change, their effect and the potential technological solutions to mitigate the effects of and reduce the drivers of climate change, covering both the developed and developing world. Starting with an outline of the problems (e.g Indonesia is the 5th largest CO2 emitter - why? What about China, largest producer, but on behalf of who?), it will then go onto cover the science behind the climate (involving atmospheric physics, heat absorption due to CO2 etc.) and then move on to what specifical problems that various  countries may face in the future. The major part of this review, however, will be technological solutions to reducing CO2 from being made in the first place as well as reducing the impact of any climate change driven problems. It will involve estimating the  impact of different technologies (i.e their capability to deliver) when compared to the  overall problem. Example technologies  to consider are carbon dioxide sequestration, hydrogen cells (combined with carbon sequestration?), battery electric vehicles, solar/wind power generation and storage etc.... This could also include an analysis of full-life-cycle carbon costs of these technologies, which is both complex to calculate and an underused method when governments form policy.  

Research

Research Interests:

See Alan Drew’s research profile pages including details of research interests, publications, and live grants.

Supervision

Performance

Awards

• Changjiang Distinguished Professor (2015)
• Talent 1000 Scholar of the Chinese Ministry of Education (2014)
• European Research Council Fellow (2012)
• Leverhulme Fellow (2008)
• 1851 Fellow (2004)

Professional Activities

• Hon. Secretary of the Institute of Physics Environmental Physics Group (2021-Present)
• International advisor to the Indonesian Minister for Research and Technology (2021 - Present)
• Indonesian National Research  Priorities Leader: batteries for static power storage (2021  - Present)
• International Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Magnetism and its Applications  (2020 - Present)
• Cofounder and Director of the Indonesian National Batteries Research Institute (2020 - Present)
• Director of the Materials Research Institute, QMUL (2018-Present)
• Head of the Research Centre for Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, QMUL (2016-Present)
• Academic lead for REF 2021 UoA9 (2018-2021)
• Hon. Secretary of the IOP Magnetism Group (2015-2019)
• Member of the Materials and Life Sciences Advisory Panel of the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency (2012-2017)
• Member of a panel of experts on radiactive beam technology for the IAEA, Vienna, and co-signatory for a research agreement between QMUL and the IAEA on radiation damage in materials
• Scientific advisory board member of a number of international conferences, referee of a number of articles in scientific journals, scientific referee for NIST NCNR,  American Chemical Society, EPSRC, EU H2020, and STFC Facilities Access Panel.

Academic Positions

• 2018 - Present: Professor of Physics, School of Physics and Astronomy, QMUL
• 2012 - 2018: Reader in Physics, School of Physics and Astronomy, QMUL
• 2011 - 2012: Senior Lecturer, School of Physics and Astronomy, QMUL
• 2008 - 2011: Leverhulme Fellow, Department of Physics, QMUL, UK. Additional post: Visiting Research Fellow, University of Fribourg, Switzerland (from September 2008).
• 2006 - 2008: öberassistant (Senior scientist), Department of Physics, University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Additional posts: Research Fellow of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 (until Oct 2006) & Visiting Research Fellow, Queen Mary University of London (until September 2008).
• 2004 - 2006: Research Fellow of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. Split between: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St. Andrews, UK; ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK; and the Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland. 

Education

• 2000 - 2004: Ph.D. Physics, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews.
• 1999 - 2000: M.Phil. Materials Engineering (M.Res.), University of Birmingham.
• 1996 - 1999 2:1 B.Sc. (Hons.) Physics, University of Birmingham.