Dr Andrew James

Professional biography

I received my DPhil in theoretical physics from the University of Oxford before moving to the U.S., where I worked at the University of Virginia and Brookhaven National Laboratory. I then returned to the UK to take up an EPSRC postdoctoral fellowship at UCL, before becoming a lecturer at the OU.

Research interests

My research area is theoretical condensed matter physics, particularly systems that exhibit exotic behaviour due to strong correlations or quantum fluctuations. My work includes subjects in quantum magnetism, high temperature superconductors, low dimensional systems (quantum chains, wires and quasi-2D systems), many-body entanglement and cold atomic gases. I seek to understand these unconventional quantum systems, and to develop the necessary tools to do so. I use both analytical and numerical methods and often collaborate with experimentalists.

I have developed open source code to study 2D many-body quantum systems, realised as large arrays of coupled quantum chains. This has proved particularly useful for studying out-of-equilibrium dynamics (time dependent behaviour) in such systems. A technical talk I gave on some of this work is available to view here.

I am a peer reviewer for multiple international physics journals, and hold IOP trusted reviewer status - demonstrating "a high level of peer review competence, with the ability to critique scientific literature to an excellent standard".

Teaching interests

I am the currently the module chair of SM381 Electromagnetism (and I was previously the chair of the predecessor module SMT359). 

At other institutions I have taught Classical Mechanics and Mathematical Methods for Physics.

I am an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (now AdvanceHE).

International links

I have a long running collaboration with members of the Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science department at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States.