Research Forum

Professor Sir Jim McDonald GBE FREng FRSE

Professor Sir Jim McDonald GBE FREng FRSE is one of Scotland’s most accomplished engineers and President of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In HM The Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours List in June 2012, Sir Jim was awarded a knighthood for services to education, engineering and the economy. He was appointed a Knight Grand Cross in the 2024 New Year Honours list for services to engineering, to education and to energy.

Professor Susan Gourvenec FREng

Susan is a member of the Programme Board for the Engineering X Safer End of Engineered Life programme and Theme Lead for Safer Decommissioning of Offshore Structures and Ships. Susan holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies in Intelligent & Resilient Ocean Engineering, which drives activities to create a step change in ocean engineering design to support responsible, sustainable and economic ocean development. Susan has an established track record of International Standards development for offshore infrastructure through roles with the ISO, BSI, API and LR. Susan is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers Susan is based at the University of Southampton, where she is Professor of Offshore Geotechnical Engineering of the Southampton Marine & Maritime Institute. and Deputy Director

Professor Priti Parikh

Professor Priti Parikh is Professor at the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction and Founder Director of UCL’s Engineering for International Development Centre. This centre focuses on infrastructure solutions for human development and wellbeing, and researches locally acceptable water–sanitation–energy solutions in low- to middle-income countries. She was recently recognised by Apolitical as one of the 100 most influential academics for government policy. She has industry experience in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the UK on design and delivery of infrastructure with a focus on partnership with local communities. She holds the Bboxx/Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair on solar energy access in sub-Saharan Africa. She is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), an ICE Council Member, and sits on the boards of the Happold Foundation and Engineer’s Against Poverty.

Professor Jason Hallett

Jason Hallett performs research involving the solution behaviour of ionic liquids and the use of ionic liquids in the production of lignocellulosic biofuels, sustainable chemical feedstocks, vaccine manufacturing and waste recycling (particularly for metal-contaminated solid materials). This research is supported by both the UKRI and industry. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He joined Imperial College, first with a Marshall-Sherfield Postdoctoral Fellowship in Sustainable Chemistry and in 2014 was appointed a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering, before promotion to Reader in 2016 and Professor in 2018. He has authored over 150 articles and holds 10 patents.

Professor Magda Titirici

Magda Titirici received her PhD in Materials Chemistry from University of Dortmund in Germany. She then joined the Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces as a Postdoctoral Fellow and later become a Group Leader, starting her independent research on sustainable carbon materials in 2006. Magda received her Habilitation in 2013 from University of Potsdam/Max-Planck Institute. She then moved to UK, to Queen Mary University of London as a Reader in Materials Science and in 2014 she was promoted to Full Professor. Magda moved to Imperial College London in January 2019 to take up a Chair in Sustainable Energy Materials. Magda is the author of over 250 articles and is included in the Global Highly Cited Researchers (Clarivate Analytics) over the past four years. She is the author of 13 book chapters and one book. She also hold 7 patents. Magda has received the Rosenhein Medal from IoM3, an Honorary PhD from University of Stockholm in 2017, the Chinese Academy of Science President Fellowship, the Royal Society of Chemistry Corday-Morgen prize in 2018 and a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies fellowship in 2019.

Professor Natalio Krasnogor

Natalio is a Professor of Computing Science and Synthetic Biology at the School of Computing Science and a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies He is a Director of Newcastle's Interdisciplinary Computing and Complex BioSystems (ICOS) Research Group and of the Centre for Synthetic Biology and the Bioeconomy. He is associated with the Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology. His research activities lie at the interface of Computing Science and the Natural Sciences, e.g. Biology, Chemistry and Physics. His expertise is on Machine Intelligence (e.g. optimisation, data mining, big data, evolutionary learning), Complex Systems and Unconventional Computing (e.g. biocomputing) to Bioinformatics, Systems and Synthetic Biology.

Dr Amit Pujari

Amit is a practicing Biomedical Engineer and a Neuroscientist and researches on Neurotechnologies and Neurophysiology. Since receiving PhD in Biomedical Engineering in 2016, from the University of Aberdeen, Amit has worked at the School of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science (previously as a Senior Lecturer and currently as an Associate Professor (Reader) of Biomedical Engineering) at the University of Hertfordshire, England, UK and holds an honorary position (Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering) at the School of Engineering, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Amit's particular research interests are in the area of Neurorehabilitation (neuromuscular physiology, motor control/impairment and rehabilitation); with the focus on (a) gaining an improved understanding of the control processes that support mobility in healthy (elderly) and those with disabilities and (b) developing technology/engineering solutions to tackle the physiological disorders/conditions through devices and device based exercises.

Professor Bruno Merk

Bruno Merk is NNL/RAEng Research Chair in Computational Modelling for Nuclear Engineering at University of Liverpool. He completed his PhD on analytical solution methods for the time dependent neutron transport equation at Technical University Karlsruhe. He also holds Diploma in Energy and Power Plant Technology Technical University Munich. . He worked 9 years at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, HZDR, as Leading Scientist and group head for neutron physics and innovative reactors, responsible for code development, safety of innovative reactors and waste management. Additionally he served as representative in the IAEA Technical Working Group of Fast Reactors. Before, he worked for 10 years at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, now KIT, on fast reactor safety, neutron physics for innovative reactors, and Plutonium recycling.

Dr Ilan Adler

Dr Ilan Adler Ilan has a PhD in Environmental Engineering. He is an Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellow and Principal Teaching Fellow at University College London (UCL). As an eco-technology expert, Ilan has worked in solar technology and AD worldwide for over 10 years and co-developed a number of products. He founded EcoNomad Solutions as part of a Royal Academy of Engineering fellowship awarded in 2018. He has vast entrepreneurial experience and has founded 3 companies and a charity (IRRI-Mexico) in adjacent sectors.