From March 2027, Max Birch will be an Assistant Professor and Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick. His research combines focused ion beam sculpting with electrical transport measurements, complemented by techniques ranging from X-ray and electron microscopy to neutron scattering and more.
He completed his PhD at Durham University with Prof. Peter Hatton and Dr. Paul Steadman, studying the three dimensional structure of magnetic skyrmions. He subsequently joined Prof. Gisela Schütz’s group at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, investigating magnetic textures and their dynamics, including in van der Waals magnets. At RIKEN’s Center for Emergent Matter Science in Japan, he worked with Prof. Yoshinori Tokura, developing single-crystal FIB devices to explore quantum transport and emergent electromagnetism.