Research Interests
Open to PhD applications in the fields of:
- Low-energy antimatter (positrons and positronium) interactions with atoms, molecules and condensed matter
- Theoretical and computational physics and chemistry
- Atomic and molecular many-body physics
- Atomic and molecular scattering theory
- Electronic structure theory
Current Research Opportunities
Public outreach & key achievements
I am a full Professor in Theoretical Physics and Chemistry. I hold a European Research Council Consolidator grant (2025-2030), successive to an ERC Starting Grant (2019-2024) for a research programme developing theory for antimatter interactions with atoms, molecules and condensed matter.
I graduated MPhys from Balliol College, University of Oxford (2008) and PhD in Theoretical Atomic Physics from QUB (2011). Since then I have been a Visiting Fellow at ITAMP, Harvard University, a Research Fellow at Durham University Chemistry Department and the Joint Quantum Centre, and an EPSRC Fellow in Theoretical Physics at Queen's University Belfast (2015-2019). I was awarded the 2025 international CMOA (Centre de Mecanique Ondulataire Appliquee) Promising Scientist Prize, the 2019 Institute of Physics Sir David Bates, the 2018 QUB Vice-Chancellors Postdoctoral Research Prize, and the 2017 international ICPEAC Sheldon Datz prize for outstanding contributions to atomic, molecular, plasma and optical physics.
I am a Council Member of the UK Institute of Physics, and am the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Physics of Ireland, having previously Chaired of the Institute of Physics Ireland Committee (2022-2024), and am a board member of the Northern Ireland Science Festival. I am a International Scientific Advisory Board member of ICPEAC, POSMOL and ECAMP conferences, and Specialist Editor for the international journal Computer Physics Communications. I am a Fellow of the Young Academy of Europe, and an inaugural member of the Young Academy of Ireland.
Research students
- Taylor Scott (2025 - present)
- Tiarnan Smyth (2024 - present)
Alumni: Where are they now
| Name | Dr Sarah Gregg (PhD 2025) |
| Current Position | Postdoctoral Research Fellow in our group, QUB |
| Name | Dr Jack Cassidy (PhD 2024) |
| Current Position | Statistician, Northern Ireland Research Agency (NI Civil Service) |
| Name | Dr Jaroslav Hofierka (PhD 2023) |
| Current Position | Postdoctoral Researcher, Heidelberg University (with Prof. Lenz Cederbaum) |
| Name | Dr David Waide (PhD 2021) |
| Current Position | Postdoctoral Researcher, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland |
Discover More
- Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences
- School of Mathematics and Physics
- Centre for Light-Matter Interactions
- https://blogs.qub.ac.uk/antimatter/dermot/