Louise Wright is the Head of Science for Data Science and the Head of Digital Metrology. In these roles she is responsible for setting the strategic direction of the scientific research within the Data Science Department, and for working with colleagues across NPL to ensure that metrology data can be delivered digitally and in a machine-actionable form. NPL’s work on Digital Metrology will improve confidence in data across multiple sectors, by ensuring measurement data is traceable, has associated uncertainties, and is consistent with the FAIR principles.
Her main area of research is the application of numerical techniques such as finite element (FE) methods, finite difference methods, boundary element methods and meshless methods to metrology problems from a wide range of areas of physics, including static and dynamic stress analysis, heat transfer, and acoustics. She is interested in optimisation and uncertainty evaluation applied to finite element models, particularly for use in improving confidence in FE as a design tool.
She is also interested in methods of integrating measurement data into models to enable estimation and uncertainty evaluation for parameters and initial conditions. This task feeds into the idea of a “digital twin”, which uses a combination of data gathered throughout a system’s development and lifetime and a validated model to deliver high accuracy predictions of system performance with associated uncertainty quantification.
Louise received an MA in Mathematics from Cambridge University in 1994, and an MSc in Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Analysis from Oxford University in 1995. She spent four years working with FE in industry before joining NPL in 1999. Louise is the chair of the NAFEMS Working Group on Computational Structural Mechanics, a member of the NAFEMS Working Group on Stochastics, and is a founding member of the NAFEMS Professional Simulation Engineer certification scheme.
Recent publications:
1. “How to tell the difference between a model and a digital twin”, L Wright and S Davidson. Advanced Modelling and Simulation in Engineering Science, 7, Article number: 13 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40323-020-00147-4
2. “Why a digital framework for the SI?”, Richard J. C. Brown, Jan-Theodoor Janssen, Louise Wright. Measurement, Volume 187, January 2022, 110309
3. “Surrogate accelerated Bayesian inversion for the determination of the thermal diffusivity of a material”, James A J Rynn, Simon L Cotter, Catherine E Powell and Louise Wright, Metrologia 56(1), 015018, 2019. https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1681-7575/aaf984
4. “Metal powder bed fusion process chains: an overview of modelling techniques”, Shukri Afazov, Adam Roberts, Louise Wright, Prashant Jadhav, Adam Holloway, Hector Basoalto, Katy Milne & Nick Brierley. Progress in Additive Manufacturing (2021) https://doi.org/10.1007/s40964-021-00230-1
5. “Ultrastable laser interferometry for earthquake detection with terrestrial and submarine cables”. Giuseppe Marra, Cecilia Clivati, Richard Luckett, Anna Tampellini, Jochen Kronjäger, Louise Wright, Alberto Mura, Filippo Levi, Stephen Robinson, André Xuereb, Brian Baptie, Davide Calonico. Science, 03 Aug 2018 : 486-490
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