Research Fellowships 2026
The challenge
Magnesium is the lightest structural metal. Weighing a third less than aluminium and with similar strength, it offers significant potential to improve electric vehicle performance, as well as achieve lightweighting in other sectors such as wearables, robotics and aerospace.
The research
Dr Jack Aspinall’s research focuses on the thixocasting of magnesium, a promising emerging manufacturing method. Through his Research Fellowship, he will study and understand the origin of the improvement in strength and ductility achieved by thixocasting over die casting, as observed in preliminary tests. He will also develop alloys which achieve industrial performance targets for corrosion resistance, strength and ductility.
The researcher
Dr Aspinall completed a DPhil from the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford. His previous research has focused on lithium alloy electrodes for solid state batteries, as part of the Faraday Institution SOLBAT project and a project with Nissan Motors. Pure lithium metal electrodes offer 10 times’ greater energy density than the graphite currently used in lithium-ion technology, but they have poor cycling and rate performance due to contact loss between the lithium and the solid electrolyte. Dr Aspinall established and led work on alloying of lithium metal to improve this performance – effectively mitigating contact loss by alloying with magnesium and demonstrating that by adding a high-diffusivity intermetallic phase, discharge rate can be significantly improved. Based in part on this success, the research group successfully obtained a £15 million funding extension for the SOLBAT programme, where he led the alloys and interlayers work package. The expertise he developed in metallurgy, electrochemistry and mechanics will be invaluable in exploring structural magnesium alloys.
Related content
View all programmesSupport for research
The Academy runs a number of grants to support excellent researchers carry out engineering activities and to enable clo…
Research Fellowships
Our Research Fellowships support outstanding early-career researchers to become future research leaders. Applications f…