Alex joins the department as an EPSRC Fellow, working with Prof. Matthew Turner on a broad spectrum of complex systems, ranging from the formation of flocks to the dynamics of social and economical systems.

He received his BSc in Physics from the University of Athens (Greece) in 2004 (First Class Honours). Finishing his undergraduate studies, he enrolled in an inter-disciplinary Master's program in Medical Physics jointly organized by the Department of Physics and Medicine of the University of Athens (Distinction). However, he never lost interest in Theoretical Physics and in 2007 he began his Ph.D. studies under the European Cotutelle system (University of Heidelberg, Germany and University of Athens). His research during these years was in strongly chaotic driven billiard systems, which are extensively used as models for non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. The main focus was in the deeper understanding of the mechanism believed to be responsible of the ultra high energies of cosmic ray particles, known as Fermi acceleration. Finally, his Ph.D. showed that strong intermittency is a sufficient condition for the emergence of a collective behaviour, even in the absence of inter-particle interactions.

Dr. D. Seghier joined the group of Surface and Interface Science , as an academic visitor from the University of Iceland, Iceland, in April 2012. His research focuses in general on the characterization of defects in semiconductors. In the past few years he has been involved in the investigation of dilute magnetic semiconductors doped with magnetic ions and their potential use in spintronic applications.