Idris Mohammed, PhD

I chose to do a PhD in my fourth year as an undergraduate. We had an individual project to do which was research based and I found the process very enjoyable, so I decided that a PhD was the right path.

This led to three very happy years of study. I had the privilege of being around very pleasant colleagues - people in my office were very sociable and intelligent  and with any problems or issues we helped each other out.

My supervisor was fantastic, we had regular meetings where she would give me advice and keep me motivated and inspired. Finally, the facilities available at Imperial meant that it was possible to perform any experiment or simulation I wanted to do.

There was never an issue of we don’t have the machine or it can’t be done - nothing seemed impossible at Imperial College.

The title of my PhD was The Mechanical Characterisation of Confectionery Wafers. The aim of the research was to model the fracture of the wafers so as to minimise wastage during the cutting phase on the assembly line.

So here I was in the mechanical engineering department working, unusually, on food treats. I performed lots of tests - I compressed wafers, bent them, broke them, cut them, stuck them under the microscope, even CT scanned them. I then reconstructed a 3D model and used it for numerical simulations.

If I had to describe my PhD in one word, I’d say it was awesome. In fact, I loved it so much that I stayed on to do more research as a post doc.

"If I had to describe my PhD in one word, I’d say it was awesome"