When you join SOFI CDT, you join a community of distinguished scientists in academia and industry. The first 6-months are quite intense so naturally, the cohort becomes a close group of friends and colleagues working on Soft Matter research themes. Being part of SOFI, I have a real sense of belonging, even now as an alumnus!
I think the SOFI CDT is an excellent opportunity and provided me with so much more than a traditional PhD would have done, I really could not recommend it enough!
I was first drawn to SOFI CDT, as unlike many other programmes it offered the perfect combination of multidisciplinary teamwork, industry exposure, real-world impact, and cutting-edge science. I was particularly excited by the opportunity to learn from industry experts in some of the most innovative organisations in the county – what do the scientists do day-to-day? What are the most vital industrial challenges? A highlight for me (aside from the white-water rafting) was the media and communications training, which teaches you techniques and skills which are useful for any career. I loved being in a cohort of colleagues who all had different experiences, expertise and academic backgrounds as every single person brought something new to team activities. The people I met during the programme have become some of my closest friends and we continue to help and support one another. In fact, I co-founded Sphera Ltd. a company specialising in reducing the carbon footprint of the construction industry through material innovation alongside Phil Buckley and Scott Bush. The company is going from strength to strength, and we now have a team of 15 change makers!
I loved being part of the SOFI CDT and being a PhD student at Durham University.The initial 6 months of training (and extra bits throughout my time in SOFI) gave me a really broad understanding of lots of areas of soft matter. The ability to learn about the science and meet the academics before choosing your project is a real plus. The business and communication training courses we were given have been useful after completing my PhD and starting a career in industry. A PhD at Durham as part of SOFI was a great experience, I was able to work with a great research group in the Chemistry Department as well as collaborate with industry and academic contacts from all over the world and being part of SOFI also allowed me to travel far and wide. My project in rheology has also equipped me for my current career, where I use the skills and knowledge obtained on a daily basis to test and develop industrial formulations.
SOFI CDT provided me with a number of key advantages that helped me in my ambitions of a career in soft matter physics. A key example of this is in the way a PhD through SOFI immerses you in the UK soft matter community. Durham, Leeds and Edinburgh are significant hubs of UK soft matter research, and the SOFI PhD programme was designed in such a way as to give us (students in the programme) exposure to a broad array of research, and researchers, within multiple departments at those Universities. Network effects meant it was then easier for me to make more contacts, specific to my research interests, even beyond SOFI. The history of soft matter physics is intimately connected with industry, which has provided interesting problems, funding and leading scientists, going back to the earliest days of the field. A major part of the SOFI training programme involved case studies, led by SOFI industrial partners, which taught me a lot about the kind of problems that are of interest to industry, and, more broadly, key areas of soft matter research that can help society (e.g. reducing emissions by reducing biofouling on ships). I was able to ask the industrial research scientists about their careers, which helped me decide on the path I would follow. The case studies also provided me with the freedom to explore things beyond my undergraduate background. I threw myself into experiments, with which I had almost no experience through my maths and physics undergraduate degree, and which I knew I wouldn’t be doing much of in my specific PhD project. I know that for some others in SOFI, this freedom to explore actually led them to changing disciplines (e.g. from chemistry to physics). The studentship comes with a generous travel grant, which I took full advantage of. I was able to attend some of the key conferences on dense suspension rheology, even when they took place in the US, allowing me to meet with many of the others in the field (which was not, at that time, as large as it is today), from all over the world.
The SOFI CDT was a hugely rewarding opportunity that equipped me well for a career in industry. The variety of projects during the first 6 months broadened my experience with soft matter science, gave me the chance to think about different problems in different ways, and ultimately meant that I could make a really informed decision on my PhD project, whilst understanding more about R&D in an industrial setting. I found the strong ties with P&G and the industrial connections throughout the duration of the PhD particularly motivating, with the wider, extensive network of academic and industrial partners invaluable in providing a richer experience that was fulfilling during the 4 years and advantageous beyond the PhD.
