Rate My Professor Apala Majumdar

Professor Apala Majumdar is a Visiting Professor of Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Strathclyde. She earned her PhD from the University of Bristol, followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford and a faculty position at the University of Bath, where she served as Director of the Centre for Nonlinear Mechanics from 2018 to 2019. Majumdar joined Strathclyde in 2019 and holds concurrent visiting positions as Professor at the University of Bath and Fellow at the University of Oxford, where she has co-supervised graduate students. An applied mathematician at the interface of mathematical modelling, applied analysis, and theoretical physics, she specializes in the mathematics and modelling of nematic liquid crystals and partially ordered materials, including their applications in industry. Her research programme features analysis of continuum theories for liquid crystals and soft materials, multiscale theories bridging microscopic and macroscopic approaches, non-equilibrium phenomena such as switching processes and transition pathways between metastable states, and modelling of soft-matter applications emphasizing geometry- and energy-driven pattern formation. She collaborates with researchers in pure and applied mathematics, numerical analysis, industrial mathematics, physics, chemistry, and industry partners including Merck Chemicals, across countries like Luxembourg, China, India, Chile, Mexico, and the United States, with work funded by three international projects.

Majumdar has received major awards including Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2024), MDPI Women Mathematician Award (2025), IOP Publishing Top Cited Paper Award (2024), Turner Kirk Fellowship at the Isaac Newton Institute (2023), Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award (2022), Suffrage Science Award in Mathematics (2020), British Liquid Crystal Society Cyril Hilsum Medal (2020), British Liquid Crystal Society Young Scientist Prize (2012), and London Mathematical Society Anne Bennett Prize (2015). Key publications encompass 'Landau-de Gennes modeling of confinement effects and cybotactic clusters in bent-core nematic liquid crystals' (Physical Review E, 2026), 'Colloidal nanoparticles in liquid crystals: bulk properties, biaxiality and untwisting in cholesterics' (IMA Journal of Applied Mathematics, 2026), 'Neural network-based tensor models for liquid crystals with molecular-level information' (Physical Review E, 2026), 'A diffuse-interface Landau-de Gennes model for free-boundary value problems in the theory of nematic liquid crystals' (SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis, 2025), and 'A modified Landau–de Gennes theory for smectic liquid crystals: phase transitions and structural transitions' (SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, 2025). She contributes to committees including the Programme Committee of the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences in Edinburgh, Global Challenges Research Funding Strategic Advisory Group in the United Kingdom, London Mathematical Society Research Committee, and UKRI International Strategic Advisory Group.