Professor Gordon Love

Profile

My home is in the fantastic Sir William Henry Bragg Building which Computer Science shares with Physics & Astronomy, and the Bragg Centre for Materials Research. My research (see below) sits nicely betwen Computer Science and Physics, and main main current work is with the Soft Matter Group in Physics, where we work on a large collabroative project with Merck on applications of liquid crystal optics in AR and VR. 

I decided I wanted to become an academic at the age of about 16 when did a work experience placement at Leeds University in the then Department of Colour Chemistry. I barely knew what a University was then but the idea of research, education and generally “finding things out” captured my imagination. 

I went on to study Physics at Durham University where I got my Bachelor’s and PhD degree. I attempted to leave Durham twice – first as a Royal Society International Fellow at the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore, India, and secondly as a Postdoc at the University of New Mexico and the USAF Phillips Laboratory in Albuquerque,  USA. I then joined the faculty at Durham for 26 years. and worked in both the School of Engineering and the Department of Physics, before moving to Computer Science. I took on a number of leadership roles, including being Deputy Head of the Science Faculty – with the portfolio of undergraduate teaching – and  I was the founding Head of the re-eastablished  Department of Computer Science for 5 years before a years research leave and my move to Leeds.

Responsibilities

• Head of School of Computing
• Within the University I sit on the IT Steering Group and the Library Strategic Advisory Board
• Externally I am a member of the OfS TRAC Development Group

Research interests

My research involves optics, imaging, and displays. My background is in physics although currently my work is extremely interdisciplinary and I sit in a space which is a mixture of being a computer scientist, engineer, physicist, and even psychologist.

A common theme to my work has been adaptive and adaptable optics with a specific focus on liquid crystal devices and lenses. My early work was aimed at astronomy and large telescopes, before I diversified into biosciences and more recently vision science and virtual reality.

I have worked with colleagues in engineering, physics, computer science, psychology, maths, biosciences and even geography. My work has been returned to three different REF panels over my career - physics, engineering, and most recently computer science.

My latest work involves the optics of the eye - I am interested in the mechanisms behind how the eye focuses light which has important ramifications for VR displays  and I work with colleagues in the Computational Science and Engineering Theme and the Soft Matter Group in Physics.

Examples of my top papers include:

Wave-front correction and production of Zernike modes with a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator GD Love, Applied Optics 36 (7), 1517-1524. This currently has over 500 citations  and appears in a listing of “Editor’s Picks” selecting key papers at the 50th Anniversary of the Journal.

Why do animal eyes have pupils of different shapes? MS Banks, WW Sprague, J Schmoll, JAQ Parnell, GD Love Science Advances 1(7), e1500391.  The paper caused significant media interest – with articles appearing in the Guardian, Washington Post, New York Times and other national papers, as well as on a large number of websites. Wider impact can be measured by Altmetrics and this article has a score of 1,937 (as of 10/24). To place this in context, this article is currently ranked 5,232 out over 26 million of all research outputs measured (top 0.02% of all articles). In addition, Science Advances is a highly ranked journal and this article is currently ranked no 1. of its articles of a similar age. It is ranked no 10. of all papers ever published by Durham University (as of 10/24). 
I wrote an associated piece for “The Conversation”: Revealed: why animals’ pupils come in different shapes and sizes which currently has over 211,000 downloads (as of 10/24).

My most recent paper is Focusing on mixed narrow band stimuli: Implications for mechanisms of accommodation and displays  Abigail P. Finch, Maydel Fernandez-Alonso, Andrew K. Kirby, Jenny C. A. Read, Gordon D. Love;. Journal of Vision 2024;24(9):14. which is a collobration between Leeds, Durhan, &  Newcastle Universities and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Germany. We were interested in how the eye focusses on different colours to compensate for chromatic aberration in the eye which is important for displays.

Professional memberships

• Fellow of the Institute of Physics
• Member of Optica
• Fellow of the HEA