Marie Curie Studentship

Early Stage Training (EST)

at the CFD Centre,

University of Leeds

WHERE I COME FROM

Hello there! My name is Sabine Muntz, I'm 27 years old and I come from Germany. I grew up in a small village close to Ludwigshafen/Rhein, which is located approximately 100km south of Frankfurt/Main. A nice and well known place nearby is Heidelberg.

MY HOBBIES

During my free time I love to travel (at the moment I'm of course busy exploring the UK) and meeting friends. I'm always interested to get to know other people. Moreover, I'm doing sports and I like carnival.

MY STUDIES

In October 1999 I started to study "Industrial Mathematics" at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern in Germany (www.uni-kl.de). My studies included courses in mathematics, computer sciences and mechanical engineering. I participated in the ECMI programme. ECMI stands for "European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry" and the programme's objective is to provide mathematicians, and other university graduates from a mathematical background, with the training necessary to work successfully as mathematicians in industry. This requires a broad knowledge of mathematical techniques, the ability to use them on industrial problems and to work with people from different backgrounds.

I took part in seminars where I learned how to model and solve industrial problems. One took place in Kaiserslautern, the other one in Bristol, UK.

"Industrial Mathematics" is a course of study which attracts many foreign students, so I met people from diverse countries and different cultures. It was always enriching to talk and team up with them, therefore, I decided that I wanted to go abroad as well for a while...

MY TIME IN SWEDEN

In August 2002 I went to Gothenburg, Sweden, as an Erasmus student. I studied at Chalmers Tekniska Hoegskola (www.chalmers.se). During my seven-month stay I met a lot of friendly, nice and interesting people from all over the world. Some of the friendships are still continuing and will hopefully last for many more years. It was not only the international atmosphere that fascinated me, but also the fact to live in another country. Although Sweden and Germany are not so different, there are still a lot of things to find out and to discover. In this way, I also learned a lot about my own culture and country of origin.

MY PHD

After finishing my diploma in July 2004 I started to do a PhD at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics (ITWM) in Kaiserslautern, Germany (www.itwm.fhg.de).

In my diploma thesis, which I have written at ITWM before, I investigated the interaction of fluids and structures in deformable porous media. My PhD deals with the interaction of fluids with deformable porous media itself. A huge field of application is the filter technique.

THE MARIE CURIE PROGRAMME AND MY MOTIVATION TO COME HERE

To advance my personal and professional development, I wanted to live and work abroad once again. When I heard about the Marie Curie Programme at the University of Leeds, I was thrilled: to live abroad, to gain professional experience and to meet people from all over the world. A perfect combination to broaden one's horizon! I applied immediately and was accepted to stay for 6 months.

Now I am here since the middle of September and I'm enjoying the time very much. I work at RDR, the Rock Deformation Research Centre (www.rdr.leeds.ac.uk), located at the University of Leeds (www.leeds.ac.uk). The RDR Group carries out research, consultancy and service work for big oil companies. I am involved in a project to investigate the flow of oil through faults and folds in rocks. The topic is related to the work of my PhD. It affords an opportunity to apply my knowledge and to experience another field of application.

CONTACT

If you want to know more about me, the studentship or my work, please don't hesitate to contact me: sabine@rdr.leeds.ac.uk (until March 2007) or sabine(dot)muntz(at)itwm(dot)fhg(dot)de (from April 2007)