Tanniemola Liverpool (born 20 April 1971) is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Bristol.

Early life and education

Liverpool was born in London to parents from Sierra Leone.^[1] His father, Lennox Liverpool, also has a PhD in Mathematics and taught at the University of Jos.^[2] He went to school at the Liverpool Blue Coat School.^[3] He studied physics at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, graduating in 1991.^[1] He completed his doctoral studies, "A Stochastic Approach to Describing Geological Systems" at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Sam Edwards in 1995.^[1] Whilst at Cambridge he was part of a Group to Encourage Ethnic Minority Applicants.^[3]

Research and career

Liverpool studies the role of hydrodynamic interactions in the collective behaviour of particles in a fluid.^[4] He observed that swimming bacteria, algae and spermatozoa could be described as "living liquid crystals".^[5] By understanding the movement of artificial 'swimmers' in soft matter, he hopes to design new cancer treatments.^[6]

After his PhD, Liverpool joined University of Cologne as a postdoctoral researcher.^[7] Liverpool was awarded a Royal Society Research Fellowship in 2000.^[8] He joined the University of Leeds, working in the Applied Mathematics group.^[9]

Liverpool works at the University of Bristol in the Centre for Synthetic Biology.^[10] He studies the self-assembly of protein building blocks.^[11] He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Theoretical Biology.^[12] He is the chair of the Institute of Physics Liquid and Complex Physics group.^[13]

He is part of several initiatives to improve diversity within the physics and mathematics communities.^{[14][15][16][17]} He was selected as one of several outstanding scientists to be featured in the book "Science, Not Art: Ten Scientists' Diaries".^[18]