DrRyan Murphy

I am an Imperial College Research Fellow in the Dyson School of Design Engineering. I hold an MEng in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the University of Southampton and earned my PhD in Structural Optimisation from Imperial College London in the Department of Aeronautics, conducted in partnership with Airbus, where I developed multiscale topology-optimisation techniques for lightweight aerospace structures that were subsequently commercialised to ToffeeX.

The primary focus of my fellowship is to apply structural optimisation and generative-design methods to generate patient-specific orthopaedic implants, with a particular emphasis on biodegradable spinal implants. A core element of this work is reducing manual elements of the design process by creating an end-to-end multimodal pipeline that integrates agentic workflows, covering everything from medical-image segmentation through to topology-optimisation and boundary-condition application, to produce low-cost, seamless implants directly from CT/MRI data with minimal skilled intervention.

I have further interests in the optimisation of hypersonic vehicles -- spanning trajectory planning to minimise thermal loads, aerodynamic shape optimisation to reduce drag, and internal-topology design for integrated thermal-structural protection systems, leveraging multidisciplinary frameworks developed in collaboration with industrial partners. I also focus on designing with manufacturing processes in mind (both additive and subtractive), embedding manufacturing constraints directly within optimisation algorithms to ensure that complex, high-performance structures can be reliably produced.

Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in PhD research or collaborations in any of these areas.