Advisory board

• A commercial technologist, and qualified marketer, Tony has spent all of his working life in technology businesses.
• An industrial chemist by education, Tony started his career at Pilkington, the global glass manufacturer, before moving to South Africa to take up a management position in the R&D labs for General Mining Union Corporation (Gencor). Returning to the UK, he then took a technical sales role with Siemens before moving to VG Instruments, first as sales and marketing manager, then director.
• Tony has worked at Lucideon (formerly British Ceramic Research Limited), since 2004 and has taken the former RTO from a support entity of traditional ceramics to an international materials development and commercialization organization, with capabilities in advanced and traditional ceramics, metals and polymers. Lucideon’s world-first technology platforms include Flash Sintering of ceramics, ‘chemical ceramics’ and drug delivery systems.
• Lucideon has facilities in North America as well as the UK and is currently developing an expansion into Asia.

Lisa is the Engineering Director at the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre, overseeing all technical projects and activities. Lisa is an experienced Technical Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the chemicals and materials industry for over 15 years.  Lisa leads teams of specialists in different application areas working alongside industry to drive new technologies and commercialise graphene and nanomaterial enhanced products.  Lisa holds a PhD in nanomaterials and has a background in chemistry and biophysics

Significant projects include coatings for steel and automotive industries, composites, construction materials and graphene formulation development. Current high-profile projects include award-winning development of graphene enhanced concrete systems, nanomodified membrane systems for water treatment and advanced corrosion resistant coatings for industrial applications.

Dr. Fran Synnott is a Technologist at the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) within the Structures, Manufacturing and Materials team. As part of the ATI Technology team, she supports the delivery of the ATI programme, which invests in research and technology development to deliver the strategic priorities set out in the ATI’s technology strategy, Destination Zero, aimed at enabling net-zero aviation.

Fran holds a PhD in Materials Science from the University of Sheffield. Her doctoral and postdoctoral research focused on high-temperature materials, building experience across aerospace and space-related research programmes.

Mandar Thakare is the Associate Director of ICAM. He joined bp in Sep 2019, as the Materials Science Programme Manager in Group Research, and is responsible for the operational aspects of the ICAM partnership. He has over ten years’ experience in materials engineering, innovation strategy and new product development. Prior to joining bp, he worked as an Innovation Programme Lead at Element Six Ltd., where he supported a multi-site global team of scientists in developing and commercialising novel polycrystalline diamond products for oil and gas applications. As part of this role, he was closely involved in developing cutters for a range of O&G drilling applications across the globe, working closely with field users and drill-bit manufacturers.

He holds a BEng in Mechanical Engineering (Mumbai, India), MSc in Surface Engineering (University of Nottingham), a PhD in Tribology (University of Southampton, Schlumberger plc funded) and an MBA (Alliance Manchester Business School). Prior to Element Six Ltd., he held a post-doctoral research position at the Osney Thermofluids Lab, University of Oxford, working closely with Rolls-Royce plc on gas turbine seals. During this period, he also tutored undergraduates in Engineering Science at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford. After his PhD, he worked for Schlumberger plc, developing wear-corrosion resistant solutions for downhole directional drilling systems. During this period, he was responsible for identifying and qualifying coatings and materials solutions for Schlumberger tools deployed globally, through new suppliers and technologies. He has published journal papers, book chapters and conference papers on the subject of tribocorrosion and is a member of the IMechE Tribology Committee as well as a reviewer for journals such as Wear, Tribology International, ASME Journal of Tribology.

Dr. Neil Witten is the Innovation Lead for Advanced Materials at Innovate UK.

Prior to his role with Innovate UK, Neil spent his entire career in industry in technical leadership roles in the polymer, polymer composites and materials manufacturing industries. Neil is passionate about materials science generally and more specifically the very valuable role that advanced materials research and development plays in industrial and societal development.

Early in his career, following several years of study in polymer science & technology, Neil joined ICI at the Wilton Materials Research Centre and completed his first degree in Materials Science before then embarking on his PhD in the Processing of Continuous Fibre Reinforced Thermoplastic Matrix Composites at the University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. He later completed and MBA from Kingston Business School.

Post-ICI, Neil has held roles as Materials & Processes (Plastics) Lead at Cookson Group plc, Director of Technology & Development at Zotefoams plc, Head of Research at De La Rue plc and latterly as Global Technical Director at Hallite Seals International (part of Michelin S.A.).

Neil is a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining (IOM3) and a Chartered Engineer (CEng).