Dr Benjamin James Walker

Dr Benjamin James Walker, though he almost always goes by Ben, is a Lecturer in Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics at UCL.

When did you take up this position? What was your position beforehand?

October 2024. I came from the same position at the University of Bath, which I combined with a research fellowship from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 that I had started at UCL in 2021.

Tell us about your work at UCL - how do you spend your days, and what makes your role different to similar positions elsewhere?

I tend to split my time between teaching and research, and it is both clichéd and true to say that no two days have been the same yet. 

On any given day I might be meeting with students, planning lecture material (I am delivering a brand-new module next year, so there is currently a lot to do), meeting with research collaborators, or, on the rare occasion that time permits, doing some pen-and-paper mathematics. 

This year I took on my first PhD student, which has been a step change for me and a bit of an adjustment, but a wholly enjoyable one.

Compared to my previous positions, at UCL I've been significantly more involved in teaching, which has been great. A highlight has been being involved in a broad review of the undergraduate curriculum in Mathematics. It's been a great and somewhat daunting opportunity to take a deep dive into how UCL delivers its teaching and to revamp our programmes, and a lovely opportunity to work closely with a range of my new colleagues.

What are some of your favourite things about working at UCL? How have you found it different to previous jobs?

The best thing about UCL for me has been the culture, which makes UCL stand out to me as the place I'd like to work. 

The Department of Mathematics (especially the Mathematical Biology group) has been a really welcoming environment in which to be a young academic, both in terms of the collaborative and friendly way that research is conducted and the support that is available from colleagues. 

It's also been lovely seeing just how much people (staff and students alike) care about issues and inequalities in the broader context of academia, and that they are more than willing to go far out of their way to try to make things better for others. 

Even in the short time that I've been here as a Lecturer, there have been concerted efforts to provide ongoing support for graduate research students and first-year undergraduates from under-represented backgrounds, with resources from Department and Faculty level. 

It's been great seeing ideas get put into practice so readily and rapidly, and working with colleagues who put in the time and thought to make these things happen is fantastic.

Can you tell us about any upcoming research, or future projects that you're looking forward to working on?

A couple of years ago collaborators from Durham and I built an online tool (VisualPDE.com) for interactively exploring a topic present in almost every undergraduate mathematics curriculum (partial differential equations, or PDEs). 

This was a really exciting foray into something I knew little about, and it's since been overwhelming seeing how people from other institutions have been using what we made in their teaching and outreach activities. 

Soon, we'll be redeveloping this tool for the research community, closing the gap between teaching and research and (hopefully) enabling a whole host of new mathematics and science. 

We'll also be exploring some opportunities for knowledge exchange with industry and government, which is a new and unexpected direction. I have no idea where it will lead but, based on our experience with VisualPDE, it will be fun to find out.

Have you always been based in London? If not, when did you move here, and how did you find adapting to living in London?

I've lived in London for a few years now, but I spent a long time in Oxford and grew up in Sheffield. I had always been apprehensive about moving to such a big city (and was firmly against it for a while), but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my nerves were largely unfounded. 

Compared to where I grew up, London definitely seems to be a little less friendly, especially during the commute (though perhaps Sheffield's friendliness is the real outlier here). Fortunately, I've found this to be more than made up for by my experience at work. 

The pace of life in London is certainly faster than I was used to, but I have found that to be far from a bad thing for me. Having only visited London a handful of times before, it has been nice being able to properly take advantage of what London has to offer.

Finally, tell us about your non-work life. Do you have any hobbies, or favourite places to go in London?

Outside of work, I've been spending a lot of time (lightly) renovating a new home, which has been a scary new challenge. When that's all finished, I'm hoping to get back into swimming, which kept me sane before my move to London. 

Not having a usable kitchen for a while was a great excuse to try out London's comprehensive offering of food, and I'm slowly spiralling outward from the Bloomsbury campus in search of great eats. That being said, sushi coupled with the sunset view from atop Primrose Hill will be a hard one to beat.