About
I am a first year DPhil student at the University of Oxford supervised by Professor Patrick Farrell, as well as by Dr Christopher Ham and Dr Ed Threlfall at the UK Atomic Energy Authority. I work on the calculation of plasma equilibria in fusion devices, with a particular interest in non-axisymmetric equilibria. I am interested in hearing from anyone working on similar problems.
Research interests
- Tokamak plasma equilibria
- Multiple solutions of nonlinear PDEs
- Magnetohydrodynamics
- Firedrake (Finite Element Code)
News
Talk: On 13/02/26 I gave a talk to the SIAM student chapter at the University of Manchester on “Finding MHD equilibria via magneto-frictional relaxation". There I discussed work I have done with Boris Andrews on a helicity-preserving scheme for finding axisymmetric plasma equilibria.
Meeting: On 31/03/26 I attended the Bath-RAL Day 2026 and enjoyed making new connections and discussing my work.
Upcoming
24/05/26: I will be attending the EMS School on Mathematical Aspects of Fluid Flows in Kácov, Czech Republic.
01/06/26: I will be attending the PETSc annual user meeting and Firedrake ‘26.
29/06/26: I will be attending SciCADE 2026.
Short CV
- 2021–2025 · MMath student / University of Warwick
- 2025–Now · DPhil student / University of Oxford
Contact
Email: Thomas.Higham@maths.ox.ac.uk
Location: Oxford, United Kingdom