Dr Ben Hanson

Profile

I am a lecturer in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leeds, UK. I am currently based in the Physics Education Research Group to assist with the University’s “Curriculum Redefined” initiative. I teach Mechanics and Computing for 1st Year students, and Molecular Simulation for 3rd Year students. I also recently began teaching at the Southwest Jiaotong University Joint School in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. Aligned with this, my research interests are in physics education, where I am investigating the efficacy of virtual reality technology on teaching physics, and in computational biophysics, where I am currently investigating generalised simulation models to integrate biological information at different length- and time-scales. I am also very interested in the philosophy of science, and how humans view science in the modern world.

I obtained Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) as part of my scholarship training, and a fellowship from the Leeds Institute of Teaching Excellence (LITE) to perform research into teaching in virtual reality. I (alongside colleagues) also recently obtained a grant from the Horizon Institute at the University of Leeds to form a collaborative network to study the effect of magnetism on biological systems, an area which may need revisiting given modern medical challenges.

Responsibilities

• Curriculum Redefined Lecturer
• Module Leader

Research interests

Physics Education

I am interested in the use of virtual reality technology in the teaching of physics. Virtual reality (VR) is no longer a gimmick; modern VR applications support high-quality graphics, a wide range of development tools and highly responsive user-interactivity. VR has been used successfully in cutting-edge physics research, and has recently been shown, as part of my LITE fellowship, to aid the learning of physics by utilising experiential learning as a complement to a theoretical understanding. However, experiential learning is a very loosely defined term and as such, more work is needed to understand exactly what people learn how they learn through exposure to virtual systems.

Perhaps more importantly, VR represents the creation of another, almost self-contained world. As such, we could perform the scientific method inside a VR environment, take some measurements, apply to maths and eventually infer the laws by which the VR Universe works; the rules programmed in by the designer. What does this mean regarding our connection to the “real” world in which we live, and how we interact with it? Does such a perspective affect our beliefs about the world in which we live? These are profound philosophical questions that are important to ask when utilising VR, especially when our goal is to teach “how the Universe works”.

Computational Biophysics

When simulating biological systems, scientists have somewhat competing interests, although perhaps they don’t realise it. Some scientists want to study the smallest units of biological matter, right down to the quantum scale. Others are interested in the material properties at the micro and macro scales. Due to the complexity of these systems, computational simulations and numerical methods are necessary to do any sort of realistic calculation. This means that we absolutely cannot study both the smallest and largest scales at the same time; the amount of data processing is simply too much. In response to this, the scientific community continue to push for ever more data processing power. Bigger computers, more computers, faster computers. In my opinion, this is a bad plan and indeed, contrary to a fundamental doctrine of the scientific method: Ockham’s Razor. If we want to understand the macroscale, we do not always need to know the position of every single quantum particle. We can use different methods at different scales, and that is entirely ok.

My research into computational biophysics builds on my research portfolio from studying large molecular motors and hierarchically structured protein hydrogels and asks: when is it appropriate to use one method over another? I am currently aiming to design a simulation platform which combines multiple different types of simulation and can internally decide, based on various physical metrics, which to use at a particular point in the simulation. He hopes this will enable more efficient simulations of biophysical systems and further, provide at least some understanding of the mechano-kinetic communication across biological length-scales.

Qualifications

• PhD in Computational Biophysics

Professional memberships

• Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy

Student education

At the University of Leeds I am is responsible for teaching multiple modules from 1^st Year to 3^rd Year. I also supervise students at BSc, MPhys/MSc, and PhD level. I currently hold a fellowship from the Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence (LITE) to study the efficacy of virtual reality technology on physics education, and am involved in various outreach activities, some of which have been published by the IOP.