Professor Scott McCue

Biography

Scott McCue is Professor of Applied Mathematics in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.

Background: Scott McCue was awarded a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Queensland in May 2000.  His PhD supervisor was Professor Lawrence Forbes, who is now at the University of Tasmania.  Scott was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham from 1999-2001, under the supervision of Professors David Riley and John King.  He was then a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Wollongong from 2002-2004 under the supervision of Professor James Hill, who is now at the University of South Australia.  In 2004 Scott took up a position as Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at Griffith University.  He moved to QUT in 2007 as Lecturer in Mathematics, was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2009, Associate Professor in 2012, and Professor in 2016.

In 2019 Scott was awarded the EO Tuck Medal for research and service to ANZIAM.  From Aug-Dec 2019 he was a Simons Visiting Fellow at the Isaac Newton Institute of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge.  In 2013 he spent time on sabbatical leave in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Melbourne.  In 2009 he was awarded the JH Michell Medal.

Research discipline at QUT: Applied and Computational Mathematics

Areas of expertise

• Fluid mechanics
• Heat and mass transfer
• Interfacial dynamics
• Asymptotic analysis
• Mathematical biology

Topics of research (click for examples)

Stefan problems (mathematics of melting, freezing and crystal formation)

• Asymptotic analysis for melting/freezing a ball
• Singularity formation for ill-posed Stefan problems
• Melting crystals in microgravity
• Effect of surface tension and kinetic undercooling on radially-symmetric melting
• Extinction analysis for inward solidification
• Numerical methods for pattern formation due to crystal growth from undercooled melt
• Related mathematical models for the penetration of solvent through glassy polymers and drug diffusion

Free surface flows (mathematics of water wave problems)

• Properties of ship wakes
• Exponential asymptotics for low Froude number flows
• Flow due to source or sink
• 2D flows past surface piercing objects
• Stokes waves
• Computing ship wave patterns in 3D
• Time-frequency analysis of ship wakes

Hele-Shaw flows (viscous flow between two closely held flat plates)

• Bubble contraction in Hele-Shaw flows
• Doubly connected Hele-Shaw flows
• Pattern formation due to viscous fingering
• Saffman-Taylor instability with kinetic undercooling
• Selection problems for steadily propagating bubbles

Thin film flows (viscous flow with small aspect ratio)

• Fingering patterns due to flow of thin viscous film down a smooth surface
• Flow of a single drop: rivulets, corner singularities and pearling
• Spreading of thin films of leaf surfaces with industrial applications
• Extensional flow of viscous drop due to gravity

Droplet impaction

• Impaction of surfactant-laden droplets on leaf surfaces
• Simulation of agrichemical spraying of plants
• Experimental validation

Mathematical biology

• Models for wound healing
• Multiscale-modelling of cell biology
• Modelling cell invasion with nonlinear diffusion
• Cell proliferation and migration assays
• Tumour-growth models
• Collective cell motion of melanoma cells
• Biological tissue deformation
• Random walk models for cell motion
• Transport through crowded media
• Parameter estimation using experimental data

Other odds and ends

• Non-local geometric flows, mean curvature flows, curve-lengthening flow
• Linear and nonlinear diffusion