My research is focussed on using multiscale approaches to model bacterial population transport and growth in porous media. I am supervised by Prof. Philip Maini, Prof. Alain Goriely, and Prof. Andreas Münch.

Overview of my research

Bacterial transport in porous media has great environmental implications. The earth is estimated to sustain $4-6 \times 10^{30}$ prokaryotic cells containing $3.5-5.5 \times 10^{14}~\mathrm{kg}$ of carbon. The abundance of these cells in soil implies that they make a significant contribution to global environmental geochemical cycles.  
One important environmental role of microbial organisms, especially bacteria,  is evident in bioremediation process.  Often contamination comes from industrial leakage enters the subsurface water supply and endanger the groundwater supplies. Bioremediation is aimed to degrade these contaminants through the activity of microbial populations such as bacteria. In my work, I aim to model bacterial transport and growth in the aqueous phase in a porous medium. Using homogenisation methods I aim to develop and upscale continuum models and individual-based models represneting bacterial transport, growth and interactions in porous medium. Thus, enhancing the understanding of the bacterial response to metabolic and nonmetabolic attractant and the role that porous media and fluid advection in the bacterial growth and transport.