Danny van der Haven
Early-Career Fellow 2024–2025

Danny van der Haven (born 1995 in the Netherlands) is a computational and materials scientist. His research focuses on granular materials such as gravel, sand, and powders. His primary interest lies in connecting how the microscopic properties of granular materials, such as the individual grain size, shape, and stiffness, affect their macroscopic behavior. He aims to use this knowledge to improve the properties and sustainability of, e.g., concrete and other materials that use sand as a starting material. By doing this, he hopes to tackle the societal and economic problems that come with our current large-scale usage of, and dependence on, sand.

Danny received his PhD in 2024 from the University of Cambridge (UK). In his doctoral thesis, he worked on improving the compression of pharmaceutical powders into tablets using a combination of experimental and computational techniques. His work has received widespread attention in the pharmaceutical and scientific computing community, giving webinars at Dassault Systemes and Medelpharm. His work on pharmaceutical tablets recently appeared on the front page of the national magazine by the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining (IOM3) in the UK.