Rich Kerswell is an applied mathematician with a research focus on fluid mechanics — the study of liquids, gases and plasma and the forces that act on them. He has made contributions in a number of areas such as the stability of rotating fluids motivated by the effect of tides and precession on the Earth’s outer core.

In addition, Rich has studied the breakdown of laminar fluid flow to turbulent flow in a pipe (most notably by the discovery of new exact solutions of the Navier–Stokes equations), and the use of optimisation techniques to characterise statistical properties of fluid turbulence. He also has interests in stratified fluid mechanics motivated by applications in oceanography and the atmosphere as well as in the motion of granular materials.