I am a physics developer currently working at Epic games. I have been in the games industry working in physics simulation for around 20 years. My main focus has been on development of rigid body solvers and on character physics. Prior to the games industry I worked briefly in defense working on simulating sonar systems and did a PhD in Quantum Field Theory on the Ads/CFT Correspondence.

Epic Games

I'm currently a physics lead at Epic working on physics and character movement.

Among other things, I developed the Chaos Mover system for multiplayer physics based movement using async physics. This was recently used in the Fall Guys Crown Jam experience in Fortnite

Electronic Arts

I worked as a physics developer helping to build the rigid body body simulation now used by all EA titles. I then became lead of the character physics group working on physics driven animation, mainly for the EA Sports titles. I then became technical director and product manager for the physucs group, overseeing destruction, rigid body, cloth and hair simulation. My role then expanded to include product leadership over Frostbite animation and AI groups. Some personal highlights:

Developing a physics based animation system used by all of EA Sports

Here is a talk given at GDC about this work given by my colleague Physics Driven Ragdolls and Animation

Replacing Frostbite's use of Havok physics with EA Physics, ensuring improved stability and performance.

Here is a link showing some hair simulation work my team did: https://www.ea.com/frostbite/news/frostbite-hair-rendering-and-simulation

Here is a link that shows most of the games I contributed to during my time at EA: https://www.mobygames.com/person/504014/tom-waterson/

BAE Systems

At BAE Systems I worked making a simulation for underwater systems. This included modelling undeerwater sound propagation and sonar signal processing systems.

Education

I did a PhD in Quantum Field Theory in the University of Southampton's High Energy Physics group. My research was on the AdS/CFT Correspondence. You can see my papers on the Publications page.

Previously, I did an MSci in Mathematics and Physics at the University of Bristol. My masters project was on modelling decoherence in Cooper Pair Boxes.