About
Professor Chris Howls is Professor of Mathematics within Mathematical Sciences and Director of the University Doctoral College at the University of Southampton.
He gained a First in Joint Honours Mathematics and Physics at Bristol, before going on to obtain PhD in Mathematical Physics under Professor Sir Michael Berry FRS. Following on from winning one of only 6 SERC (the then EPSRC) postdoctoral fellowship in the UK, he has held permanent lectureships at the University of Manchester and at Brunel before coming to Southampton where he is now Professor of Mathematics.
He has served as head of the ~50 strong Applied mathematics group, curating RAE and REF submissions. He set up and ran the Faculty Graduate School in the former Faculty of Social Human and Mathematical Sciences, during which time he also took over and steered an E(no P)SRC DTP through its mid-term review.
He is currently Director of the University Doctoral College, responsible for policy, training and development of ~3,000 PGRs across all 5 Faculties, ex-officio chairing the Doctoral College Board and sitting on most University-level research and education committees.
The main area of Chris’s research works is in asymptotic analysis, including pioneering the development of exponentially accurate techniques. In over 70 published works he has also applied these techniques to identify and/or explain novel physical features in areas as broad as quantum mechanics, general relativity, nonlinear wave formation and (most recently) upstream beaming of aeroacoustic engine noise in work co-sponsored by Rolls Royce. He has supervised PhDs and postdocs across Maths, Physics and Engineering. He is PI on around £35m grants/budgets.
He is chair of the Standing Committee of the British Applied Mathematics Colloquium (the largest annual mathematics meeting in the UK). Among his editorial board appointments includes serving the maximum two full terms on the editorial board of Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A. He has given over 70 invited talks and has held several visiting chairs in the US, Europe, Japan and Australia. He is an associate Editor of the US Government Digital Library of Mathematical Functions. He co-founded the EPSRC Meet the Mathematicians outreach events and the EPSRC MathsTaught Course centres. He has served as UG/Masters external examiner and Tripos reviewer at Cambridge, Oxford, Imperialm, Bristol and as external REF assessor for Russell Group Maths departments. He is a member of the London Mathematical Society, Institutue of Physics, Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.