My main research interest is in the statistical mechanical theories of soft matter, with a particular emphasis on liquid crystals, mesogenic polymers and related materials. I have made a contribution to the molecular and phenomenological theory of thermotropic and lyotropic liquid crystals, cholesteric ordering in polymers, chain formation in strongly polar fluids and mathematical description of chirality. In the field of liquid crystals I have contributed mainly to the theory of phase transitions, theory of ferroelectric ordering and cholesteric twisting, molecular theory of elasticity and  flexoelectricity, theory of rheological and surface properties of nematics and smectics, theory of the dielectric and optical properties and theory of liquid crystal composites doped with anisotropic nanoparticles. Recent work includes a molecular theory of bent-core liquid crystals, theory of anisotropic polymer nanocomposites and a theory of cholesteric and ferroelectric lyotropic liquid crystals.

Recently I have been the UK PI in the Materials World Network project jointly funded by USA, UK, Germany, Canada and Sweden and an organiser of the EPSRC-funded 6 month programme “Mathematics of Liquid Crystals” at the Newton Institute, Cambridge