With a PhD in combustion engineering, Professor Alex James made the transition from catalytic converters to the rest of the world, where she uses mathematical modelling to solve problems. At heart she’s a mathematical modeller and works on problems from social science to climate change, but her main hobby is ecology. Although Alex says she is no ecologist – “friends had to teach me the difference between beetles and bugs” – she is excited by the contribution mathematics can make to the analysis and study of interactions among organisms and their environment.

Find out more about Alex