STEM Faculty

Dr. Elsen Tjhung is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at the Open University (UK). He completed his PhD at the University of Edinburgh (2013), followed by postdoctoral research positions at the University of Montpellier (France) and the University of Cambridge. He has held lectureship at the Univerisity of Durham before moving to the OU in 2022. His research focuses on statistical physics of soft condensed matter and active/living matter.  

Research interests

• Non-equilibrium statistical physics – understanding systems driven far from equilibrium, including population dynamics, living and active matter.
• Active matter theory – developing field theories for active phase separation and collective motion in biological and synthetic microswimmers.
• Stochastic thermodynamics – extending classical thermodynamics to non-equilibrium processes relevant to biological machines and microscale engines.
• Soft condensed matter hydrodynamics – modelling surfactants, colloids, liquid crystals and anisotropic particles near fluid-fluid interfaces.
• Multiphase flow and surfactant dynamics – coupling Cahn–Hilliard and Navier–Stokes equations to study interfacial phenomena.
• Computational modelling – large-scale simulations using finite element and Fourier-space methods.

Teaching interests

• For list of available PhD projects, please refer to the general PhD admission page: https://www.open.ac.uk/stem/mathematics-and-statistics/study-us/phd-research
• Author of Unit 10: Signal Analysis and the Fast Fourier Transform, from the module MST374: Computational Applied Mathematics.

External collaborations

• IOP Theory of Condensed Matter Special Interest Group, Ordinary Member (2021-2025).

Publications

Please check Google Scholar for complete list of publications.