Research Forum 2022

Keynote speaker

Baroness Brown of Cambridge DBE FREng FRS 

Baroness Brown was the Academy’s (then known as the Fellowship of Engineering) first Senior Research Fellow, sponsored by British Gas. She subsequently spent eight years in senior engineering and executive roles at Rolls-Royce plc and two years as Chief Executive of the Institute of Physics, before returning to academia as principal of the engineering faculty at Imperial College London in 2004. She was Vice-Chancellor of Aston University from 2006 to 2016. 

She now sits as a crossbench Peer in the House of Lords and Chairs the Science and Technology Select Committee. Baroness Brown’s interests include climate change adaptation and mitigation and the low carbon economy. She was deputy Chair of the Climate Change Committee from 2008 to 2021 and continues to chair its Adaptation Committee. She is a Non-Executive Director of Ørsted and Ceres Power, and chairs the Carbon Trust and STEM Learning Ltd. 

Professor Alicia El Haj FREng

Interdisciplinary Professor of Cell Engineering at the University of Birmingham  and Director of the Institute of Translational Medicine at the University of Birmingham

Professor Alicia El Haj is a leading figure in bioengineering and regenerative medicine. She has brought together interdisciplinary groups that are interested in aspects of cell and tissue engineering and regenerative medicine with the aim of moving innovative new cell-based therapies to the clinic. She was awarded a Royal Society Merit Award and the IOM3 Chapman medal in 2021 for major contribution towards translation of biomedical materials into healthcare. In March 2015, she was awarded the MRC Suffrage Award for her role in leading women in STEM. Alicia actively engages in public events having presented the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in 2022 on ‘Remote Control Healing ‘and at the ‘Next Big Thing’ at the Hay Festival 2017. She is a Director of a spin out MICA Biosystems which is on route to clinic with her cell therapy enabling platforms.

10 minute presentations from each awardee followed by a Q&A. 

Time: 3.05

Room: Al Qasimi

Chair: Professor Alicia El Haj FREng

Sustainable Next Generation Combustion Systems for Aero Gas Turbines

Dr Cat Gardner, Rolls-Royce Plc and Loughborough University

Combustion Aerothermal Technologist, Royal Academy of Engineering Industrial Fellow

With her partners at Loughborough University, Dr Cat Gardner is developing novel and ambitious concepts for future aero gas turbine combustors, while maintaining today's high standards of operability and reliability. This project supports the decarbonisation of air travel as part of the aviation industry’s commitment to reducing emissions and achieving net zero carbon by 2050.

Intelligent Medical Device Innovation

Professor Alejandro F Frangi, University of Leeds

Diamond Jubilee Chair in Computational Medicine at the University of Leeds and

Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies

Professor Alejandro Frangi has joint appointments at the University of Leeds’ School of Computing and the School of Medicine. He directs the CISTIB Center for Computational Imaging and Simulation Technologies in Biomedicine and is a Turing Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute. Professor Frangi is the Scientific Director of the Leeds Centre for HealthTech Innovation and Director of Research and Innovation of the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics. He holds an Honorary Chair in KU Leuven in the Departments of Electrical Engineering and Cardiovascular Sciences.

Fully superconducting machine for zero emission aviation

Professor Min Zhang, University of Strathclyde

Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow, Fully superconducting machines for next generation electric aircraft propulsion

Professor Min Zhang obtained her PhD from the University of Cambridge on Applied Superconductivity. Her research focuses on the application of advanced superconductors to enable zero emission aviation and fusion generation. Professor Zhang held a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship between 2017 and 2022 on the topic of fully superconducting machines for next-generation zero emission aircraft. She currently leads the Applied Superconductivity Laboratory at the University of Strathclyde and in December 2021 became the first-ever woman to be appointed a professor in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering.

Materials Engineering approaches to realise net zero energy solutions

Professor Stephen Skinner, Imperial College London

Ceres Power Ltd / Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Electrochemical Devices for a Zero Carbon Economy

Professor Stephen Skinner’s research focuses on the development of new ion-conducting materials for electrochemical technologies including electrolysers, fuel cells and batteries. His work links the structure and chemistry of materials under operating conditions using a suite of advanced tools including diffraction, microscopy and spectroscopy combined with isotopic labelling.

Professor Subhasish Mukerjee

Professor Subhasish Mukerjeeis the Chief Scientific Officer at Ceres, a world leading clean energy technology company in the UK.  He is also a visiting professor at Imperial College.  Prof. Mukerjee has more than 24 years’ experience in clean energy technologies and has worked previously at BP and at Delphi Corporation.  He gained his PhD at Yale University and postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.  

Time: 4.30-5.00pm

Room: National Grid

Dr Amy Gandy

Dr Amy Gandy is Senior Lecturer in Nuclear Materials Engineering and Director of Postgraduate Taught Courses in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Sheffield. She has 19 years’ experience investigating radiation effects and defect formation in inorganic materials, using a range of microscopy, diffraction and spectroscopy techniques to characterise materials from the atomic through to the macro-scale. Her research is currently focused on developing materials for fusion energy.

Dr Raziyeh Farmani

Raziyeh Farmani is a Professor of Water Engineering and Industrial Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering at Centre for Water Systems, University of Exeter, UK. She is the Chair of IWA’s Intermittent Water Supply Specialist Group. She is currently Director of the EPSRC Water Informatics Science and Engineering (WISE) Centre for Doctoral Training. Her research interests cover interdisciplinary field of Hydroinformatics including artificial intelligence, data mining and optimisation techniques and their application for real-time control for smart water systems, asset deterioration modelling, leakage management, energy management, and sustainability and resilience issues. 

Professor Tom Scott

Royal Academy of Engineering Professor of Materials and Devices at the University of Bristol and co-Director (Science) of the South West Nuclear Hub.  

Prof Scott's research expertise is in the detection and characterisation of nuclear materials, to aid prediction of their behaviour in engineered and environmental scenarios. This includes a specific strand of activity relating to nuclear robotics and sensors. He works closely with the nuclear industry in the UK and overseas to deliver characterisation and decontamination solutions for nuclear decommissioning.  

He is the academic lead for the Sellafield UK Centre of Expertise for Uranium and Reactive Metals and has been Director of the Interface Analysis Centre (IAC) in the School of Physics for over 10 years, and is also academic lead for the National Nuclear User Facility for Hot Robotics.