Dr João Vilas Boas

Postdoctoral Research Assistant

School of Mathematical Sciences
Queen Mary University of London

j.m.v.boas@qmul.ac.uk

www.qmul.ac.uk/maths/people/research-staff/joao-miguel-vilas-boas.html

Member of Prof Rodolfo Russo's Research Group

Funder:	Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Project:	CFT and Gravity: Heavy States and Black Holes

Centre for Geometry, Analysis and Gravitation

Research

Quantum Field Theory, Holography, Conformal Field Theory, Bootstrap

Interests

My research focuses on holography and the AdS/CFT correspondence to understand the
dynamics of strongly coupled quantum field theories and their gravitational duals. I am particularly
interested in conformal field theory (CFT) techniques, including the analytic conformal bootstrap, as a
non-perturbative approach to constrain and solve CFTs. My work aims to find new insights from both the
bulk and boundary perspectives to test and refine predictions from holography.

News

June 2026

Summer research internships for undergraduate students

13 June 2026

Ten talented undergraduate students from across a wide range of Science and Engineering programmes are embarking on exciting summer research internships under the mentorship of academic supervisors. This fantastic opportunity has been made possible through the QMUL Summer Training Research Initiative to Support Diversity and Equality (STRIDE) and the London ... [more]

Summer research internships for undergraduate students

Centre for Multimodal AI at CVPR 2026

12 June 2026

On 3–7 June, CMAI researchers participated in the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) 2026, held in Denver, Colorado, USA. CVPR is widely regarded as the premier annual conference in computer vision and one of the most prestigious venues in AI, bringing together leading researchers from academia and ... [more]

European Space Agency recommends Plasma Observatory mission to be selected

12 June 2026

Medium-class space missions (~€670 million) form the backbone of European Space Agency's Science Programme, enabling Europe to answer important scientific questions. From the Sun to dark matter, ESA's existing M-class missions cover a huge range of space science topics. Following a two-year study phase and careful consideration of the three finalist ... [more]

European Space Agency recommends Plasma Observatory mission to be selected

Expression of Interest for Royal Society University Research Fellowships

12 June 2026

The Department of Chemistry at Queen Mary University of London invites expressions of interest from candidates wishing to apply for the Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF). The URF is a prestigious fellowship programme offered by the Royal Society to support outstanding scientists in the early stages of their careers. ... [more]

Expression of Interest for Royal Society University Research Fellowships

Centre for Multimodal AI at ICML 2026

11 June 2026

On 6-11 July, CMAI researchers will participate at the 43rd International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), taking place in Seoul, South Korea. ICML is an international academic conference in machine learning held annually since 1980. It is the oldest and, along with NeurIPS and ICLR, one of the three primary conferences ... [more]

Kinesin motor proteins emerge as potential targets for neurodegenerative disease

10 June 2026

A study at the Centre for Molecular Cell Biology (Palacios lab in collaboration with Whitworth lab and Talisman Therapeutics Ltd, Cambridge, UK) demonstrates that the motor proteins kinesin-1 and kinesin-3 are required for the survival of both Drosophila and human neurons and shows that increasing their activity can alleviate neurodegenerative ... [more]

Marc Roth: Symmetric Parameterised Holants on Hypergraphs

9 June 2026

Together with colleagues from HPI in Potsdam, Berlin, Marc Roth has a paper accepted at ICALP 2026 which takes place in London in 2026. This is the Flagship Conference of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science recently promoted to A*, together with FOCS and STOC, one of the premiere venues for ... [more]

Impactful foundational work on network dynamics highlighted in Physical Review E

9 June 2026

A work from 2004 by Vito Latora, Professor of Applied Mathematics in the Centre for Complex Systems, and two co-authors has been selected for a collection of highly influential papers on statistical and nonlinear physics published in Physical Review E (PRE). The selection identifies 35 works from the journal's 33-year history that ... [more]

Impactful foundational work on network dynamics highlighted in Physical Review E

Prof Ana Sobrido talks to BOSS Energy about barriers to scaling sustainable energy technologies

8 June 2026

Prof Ana Sobrido was recently interviewed by Francesco Pinci, Marketing Manager at BOSS Energy, to explore the real challenges shaping the future of energy. One of the strongest insights from the discussion is that the biggest obstacle to scaling sustainable energy globally is not the absence of technology. According to ... [more]

Prof Ana Sobrido talks to BOSS Energy about barriers to scaling sustainable energy technologies

Glynn Winskel: Concurrent Strategies as Street Fibrations

7 June 2026

Glynn Winskel presented a paper with Hugo Paquet from Inria, Paris at the Mathematical Foundations of Program Semantics Conference (MFPS) in Ljubljana. The paper presents a very general model of concurrent games on event structures with symmetry, in which strategies satisfy the laws of composition up to a weak notion ... [more]

Freshwater methane emissions maximised by global warming

5 June 2026

It is not just cows that emit the powerful greenhouse gas methane – microbial emissions from the natural world will inevitably increase as our planet continues to warm. A new study led by Professor Mark Trimmer of Queen Mary University of London, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, explains how ... [more]

Behind the research: Freshwater methane emissions maximised by global warming

5 June 2026

This "behind-the-research" blog by Mark Trimmer, Professor of Biogeochemistry, takes readers beyond the published findings to reveal the motivations, challenges, and human stories that shaped the study. Say methane and most people think of cows, yet nearly half of all methane is produced by microbes in freshwaters. While we know ... [more]

Behind the research: Freshwater methane emissions maximised by global warming

Rethinking hearing aids: £607k award for innovative research at Queen Mary

5 June 2026

Dr Aidan Hogg, Lecturer in Computer Science at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, has been awarded a prestigious £607,233 Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) New Investigator Award to lead a new project rethinking hearing assistive technology. The three-year project, Spatial Hearing Augmentation to Improve Hearing Assistive ... [more]

Rethinking hearing aids: £607k award for innovative research at Queen Mary

Sarah Brown to give plenary address at international preterm birth conference

2 June 2026

UK Preterm Birth Conference 2027 hosted at Queen Mary University of London from 18 and 19 January 2027. Sarah Brown, global health campaigner and Chair of the international children's charity Theirworld, will give a plenary address with Professor James Boardman, Scientific Director of the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory, at the UK Preterm Birth Conference 2027, ... [more]

Sarah Brown to give plenary address at international preterm birth conference

Epigenetic changes can be inherited without changing DNA in animals

1 June 2026

Beyond DNA: Scientists discover how traits can be passed on without genetic changes. In a new study by researchers at Queen Mary University of London, a sea anemone has revealed that epigenetic changes can be inherited across generations, offering rare experimental evidence that information beyond DNA sequence can persist in ... [more]

Epigenetic changes can be inherited without changing DNA in animals

Pasquale Malacaria and Yunxiao Zhang: Strategic Decision-Making in Uncertain Turn-Based Security Games

1 June 2026

Pasquale Malacaria and Yunxiao Zhang have a paper published in a top security journal, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), on Strategic Decision-Making in Uncertain Turn-Based Security Games. The paper studies the problem of cybersecurity decision making. It extends previous Leader-Follower game-theoretical models where the leader is the ... [more]

May 2026

New AI system could help scientists keep up with the explosion of research papers

28 May 2026

Queen Mary University researchers have developed a new AI-powered framework, MetaBeeAI, designed to help scientists review and analyse vast amounts of literature faster, more transparently, and with greater human oversight. Dr. Rachel Parkinson, who is the leading researcher on this project, states that MetaBeeAI could potentially transform how evidence is ... [more]

New AI system could help scientists keep up with the explosion of research papers

New European Study Reveals Methane Emissions from Biogas Plants Are Higher Than Previously Estimated – But Most Could Be Easily Reduced

27 May 2026

A major new study led by Queen Mary University of London has revealed that methane emissions from biogas plants across Europe are higher than some estimates suggest—yet, once identified, the majority of these emissions could be eliminated at no net cost. A biogas plant is a facility that turns ... [more]

New European Study Reveals Methane Emissions from Biogas Plants Are Higher Than Previously Estimated – But Most Could Be Easily Reduced

Tropical butterflies "hedge their bets" with mating tactics to adapt to extreme seasons

26 May 2026

Butterfly reproduction findings provide key insights into how climate crisis might affect tropical ecosystems. New research from Queen Mary University of London shows how extreme seasonal patterns are causing rainforest butterflies to adapt their reproductive strategies at a rapid pace, with implications for species resilience under accelerating climate disruption. The ... [more]

New visiting researcher at our center

22 May 2026

We welcome Cryssa Papadaki, a new visiting Researcher at our centre, supervised by Dr Eleni Matechou, on statistical ecology approaches for analyzing eDNA-derived biodiversity datasets from freshwater ecosystems of the Aegean islands. This work focuses on Joint Species Distribution Models (JSDMs), community ecology, biodiversity–environment relationships, and the application of ... [more]