Conference Speakers

Bio coming soon…

Ivan Buckley is the Director, Business Development for Graphene@Manchester, which includes the National Graphene Institute (NGI) and the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC).

Previously, he was the Project Manager for the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), the largest centre of its type within the UK national High Value Manufacturing Catapult Network. Originally from an industry background, he has championed the need for high value manufacturing and the role that advanced materials can play in its recovery, playing a prominent role in the development and implementation of both regional and national strategies for High Value Manufacturing and Advanced Materials.

Bio coming soon…

Richard is Head of Innovation Policy in the Semiconductor Unit at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). He was one of the authors of the UK’s National Semiconductor Strategy and leads the Department’s work to support semiconductor research, innovation and start up growth as well as it’s approach to engaging the UK and global semiconductor industry. This has included working with Silicon Valley accelerator Silicon Catalyst to establish the ChipStart UK semiconductor startup incubator and setting up the UK’s Semiconductor Advisory Panel to enable the UK government to collaborate with industry on development and delivery of semiconductor policy.

Richard is a science and technology policy professional with extensive experience across a broad range of technology sectors and policy issues. His previous roles have included managing the strategy and evaluation of the UK government’s Science Capability Review programme at the Government Office for Science, developing innovation programmes at charitable foundation Nesta, and leading the Strategy Development Team at the Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s largest research foundations that aims to address the greatest global challenges in health and life sciences.

He holds an MCHEM Master of Chemistry from the University of Oxford and an MSc in Science & Technology Policy from the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex.

Professor Nigel Brandon OBE FREng FRS is Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Professor of Sustainable Development in Energy. His research is focussed on the science and engineering of electrochemical devices for the low carbon energy transition. He is a founder of Ceres Power, a FTSE listed fuel cell company spun out from Imperial College in 2000, RFC Power, a flow battery company spun out from Imperial College in 2018, and M-SPIN, a company developing & manufacturing low cost high surface area materials for electrolysers, fuel cells and batteries, in 2024

Dr Cathryn Hickey – Chief Executive of AMRICC, and Director of Lucideon, the Advanced Materials consultancy based in North Staffordshire. Cathryn led the successful bid and is now Programme Director of the Strength in Places (SIPF) wave 2 programme entitled ‘Midlands Advanced Ceramics for Industry 4.0’ which was started in 2021.  This comprises a 5 year research programme with MICG partners as well as the development of The AMRICC Centre as a go-to facility for ceramics innovation commercialisation.  Cathryn is also leading Lucideon’s contribution to the Foundation Industries Sustainability Consortium (FISC) through its participation in the Economiser Programme.  This activity involves the implementation of data science and machine learning to key ceramics manufacturing sites to enable manufacturing process optimisation, and share learning with other foundation industries. Cathryn has a first class honours degree and PhD in Chemistry from University of Sheffield, 18 years experience in the downstream oil business and 10 years experience in vocational skills development for a variety of industries.

Bio coming soon…

David is the Advanced Materials Lead at the National Composites Centre and currently chairs the UK-Ceramic Matrix Composite working group.

Prior to joining the NCC, David has worked in composite R&D at Solvay, Warwick Manufacturing Group, The University of Birmingham, and Rolls-Royce. His research has focused on both Ceramic and polymer matrix composites.

Tony Kinsella joined Lucideon in July 2004, bringing over 30 years’ experience in general management to his role. Tony is a qualified marketeer, strategist and leader and has a background in chemistry.  Tony has led Lucideon to its market-leading position as a development and commercialisation organisation (DCO), specialising in materials technology, processes, and testing.

His day-to-day role encompasses leading the Group and the Management Team and horizon scanning with a view to future proofing Lucideon alongside the CSO; and directing decisions on investments and spends.

Tony has lived and worked in the USA, Germany, South Africa, alongside the UK and brings his varied experience to his position as CEO and to his position as Director of Lucideon Group Ltd and all Lucideon companies.

Professor David Knowles joined the Henry Royce Institute as its CEO in early 2019, bringing with him a wealth of experience from senior roles in both academia and industry in the areas of materials and structural integrity. David is particularly experienced in leading the collaboration between higher education and industry, to accelerate energy sector-related research, knowledge transfer and implementation.

David is a Fellow of the Royal Academy, a Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Bristol University and was Co-Director of the South-West Nuclear Hub and Atkins Fellow. Through his career he has lead materials research at Shell Global Solutions, served as CTO at Quest Integrity (operating throughout Australasia and SE Asia) and lectured at Cambridge University; collaborating with Rolls-Royce as Assistant Director of their Ni-alloy UTC.

In recent years David has led industrial projects related to design and assessment of renewable energy offshore structures, oil and gas and nuclear plant. He holds and participates in several EPSRC/Innovate grants and is the PI on ‘SINDRI Prosperity Partnership’ which is developing cutting-edge digital technology for nuclear plant design and assessment.

Ash Owen is Head of Future Technology at Rolls-Royce. This team is focused on accelerating disruptive technology into the RR business, owns the Environmental technology brief including the support for ICAO’s CAEP process and owns the RR-University research network. He is the Rolls-Royce Director on the UK’s Sustainable Aviation Council.

Ash also supports the Rolls-Royce Heritage Flight as Chief Engineer for Griffon & Merlin engines.

His previous role was Chief Engineer – Civil Technology Programmes where his team delivered many gas turbine demonstrators and the ACCEL project which set the electric world speed record.  Before that he has been Chief Engineer Trent 700, Engineering Executive Compressor Engineering and Managing Director for a composite R&D centre.

Ash studied Aeronautical Engineering in Manchester University.

Born in Wales, he lives in Derbyshire, UK. He is married with a 22 year old daughter and enjoys cycling, hill walking, swimming and scuba diving holidays.

• • Andrius Patapas is the Co-founder and CEO of 2D Nano, a cutting-edge production company specialising in graphene and other two-dimensional materials for deep tech applications. With a strong academic foundation in chemical engineering, Andrius holds a BEng, MSc, and PhD in the field, combining technical expertise with entrepreneurial drive to advance innovation in advanced materials.
    He is also a Research Associate at Imperial College London, working at the intersection of academia and industry to develop scalable, real-world technologies. His leadership at 2D Nano reflects a commitment to pioneering next-generation solutions that harness the unique properties of 2D materials across sectors including construction, energy, electronics, and biomedical engineering.

Jonathan Phillips plays a key role in driving innovation and operational excellence within Morgan Advanced Materials. With a strong background in materials science and engineering, he specializes in the development and application of advanced materials for diverse industries. Jonathan’s expertise lies in optimizing processes, improving product performance, and fostering collaborative relationships with customers, academia, and suppliers to address complex challenges. At Morgan Advanced Materials, he is committed to leveraging cutting-edge technology to create sustainable, high-performance technical ceramic solutions that meet the evolving needs of customers across various sectors.

Dr Ehsan Sabet is an associate professor of Ceramics AM at Loughborough University and the founder and CEO of Additive Manufacturing Centre of Excellence, the biggest ceramic 3D printing facility in Europe with over two hundred ceramic printers and a full material development and a characterisation facility in Derby, UK.  Ehsan has twenty years of experience in research and manufacturing in material development and 3D printing. His track record of managing multi-million pounds industrial and research projects has made impacts in the supply chain of Rolls Royce (RR), SIEMENS, Jaguar & Land Rover (JLR), JCB Compact Systems, and General Motors (GM), as well as many small and medium-sized manufacturers in the UK and Europe.

At Ploughshare, Kalyan leads the commercialisation of inventions and innovation from Dstl, the wider MOD network and the UK government in the field of Climate, Environment and Sustainability. He has recently joined Arthur D Little as a Non-executive Advisor for their London office, and is an Advisory Board member for Innegev, a start-up technology incubator organisation where he advocates for the development of sustainable technologies across a wide range of sectors. Kalyan also manages Ploughshare’s partnership and service contract with The National Oceanography Centre and The Met Office.

Following his PhD in nanotechnology from the University of Cambridge, he worked across the UK, Europe, the USA, Israel, Singapore, China, and in Southeast Asia. He has also completed a senior executive programme in Strategy and Innovation from MIT and IMD, and is a fellow at the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3).

Prior to joining Ploughshare, he headed the delivery of the CTO’s corporate venturing implementation strategy of a FTSE 250 chemical company. He developed open innovation assets, ecosystems and capabilities in various geographies to identify external projects, and built technology portfolios to support the development of future products and markets. He also worked for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) as a Global Innovation lead. In this role, he was responsible for providing expert advice on European funding in Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, and represented the UK at the Programme Committee and High-Level Advisory Group of the European Commission’s (EC) Directorate of Research and Innovation. He had the opportunity to work on many strategic projects with various European government agencies, industries and research organisations.

Olivier joined Hitachi Hitachi High-Tech Analytical Science Ltd. in September 2019 as the thermal analysis sales manager for EMEA.  He has since taken ownership of the global thermal analysis product manager role.  Before joining Hitachi, Olivier worked as a material characterization application specialist for PerkinElmer UK and Canada.  He obtained his baccalaureate in chemistry (B.SC.) from Université Laval (Québec City, Québec) in 2002, and his master in polymer chemistry (M.SC.) from Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, British Columbia) working with Prof. Steven Holdcroft. In his thesis he worked on the synthesis and characterization of novel sulfonated polyimides for high temperature proton exchange member fuel cells.

Co-founder of NanoRegMed Ltd and Nanoloom Ltd. Alexander, Professor of Nanotechnology, worked at the Royal Free Hospital and University College London for over 26 years; during this time, he spent a year at Harvard Medical School working on the development of synthetic vascular compliance graft and one year at Johns Hopkins Medical School. He published more than 687 peer-reviewed research papers and registered 14 UK and International patents on materials and nanotechnology. On editorial boards of 45 journals. He supervised 121 PhD students, all successfully completed. Currently, he is working on graphene-based materials for industrial applications.

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.

Rachel is a Policy Manager at Ceramics UK and manages a range of areas including skills and employment. After studying Politics at Lancaster University, she went on to work in the political field for a number of years in London before moving back to Cheshire; she has been at Ceramics UK for 6 years.

Dr Tom Whitehead leads the Science Team at Intellegens. Tom has a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Cambridge and extensive experience of practical applications of machine learning in industry. His team works closely with R&D teams in the materials, chemicals, and manufacturing sectors to understand their product and process development problems and to apply the Intellegens technology to accelerate innovation. Tom is also active in the development of new machine learning methodologies to address high-value data analysis bottlenecks.

Sebastian Wood joined NPL in 2015 following undergraduate and doctoral studies in the Physics Department at Imperial College London. His initial research was in the field of nanoscale structure-function characterisation of organic semiconductors for photovoltaic applications. In his role at NPL, Sebastian has developed a unique facility for nanometrology of emerging electronics including structural, functional, chemical, and optical measurement modes. He has applied these techniques to hybrid perovskites, nanostructured semiconductors, 2D materials, and compound semiconductors for a variety of device applications.

Sebastian is a member of the Institute of Physics, a Chartered Physicist, and contributes to British and International Standardisation committees on Surface Chemical Analysis and Semiconductors. He is an enthusiastic communicator of physics, with experience presenting his work to a wide range of audiences from primary school children to Members of Parliament.