Speakers

Alex Corrêa is the General Director of Gerdau Graphene. In this position, he has full P&L responsibility over the company, leading its overall strategy, product development and global sales.

Alexandre has an ambidextrous background, having passed through commercial and operational roles in large and small scaled companies, national and multinational. In his previous position at Suzano, also an intra-entrepreneurial front, Alexandre led its Fluff Business Unit between 2015 and 2020 promoting the conversion of its first factory and its global sales. Previously he also served as the COO of Lacoste in Brazil and had an 8-year career at Unilever.

Alex holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Poli-USP and a specialization in Finance from FEA-USP. He holds an MBA from Fundação Dom Cabral, with a specialization module at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB – China).

Promethean Particles is a leading global pioneer in the development and high-volume manufacture of high specification, cost-effective nanomaterials. Products manufactured by Promethean, including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), have broad utility in a number of applications and are increasingly being deployed in the fight against climate change and in energy-sensitive applications, including carbon capture.

Promethean has developed unique and patented continuous-flow reactors, which dramatically improve process reproducibility and reliability, whilst providing the scale necessary for nanomaterials to be considered a viable industry solution. The company has full scale manufacturing capabilities at its site in Nottingham, UK, where it operates the world’s largest continuous flow nanomaterial manufacturing plant.

Selina completed her PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Nottingham in 2012 then joined the technical team at Promethean, working on and managing a range of R&D projects for advanced material development. In November 2022, Selina took on the position of Product Market Manager, acting as the company’s interface between R&D and commercial deployment.

Dr. Michael Badding is a Senior Research Associate, Crystalline Materials Research at Corning Incorporated. Dr. Badding is the technical leader of Corning’s Ribbon Ceramics program with thirty years of industrial research experience in the field of ceramic materials and processing focused on thin, flexible ceramics and their applications. He graduated from Cornell University with a PhD in Solid State Chemistry and holds over sixty US patents and forty publications.

James joined the University of Manchester after 25 years in the industry where most recently he was Vice-President of Technology Collaboration Programmes and Managing Director of the Advanced Technology Centres for BAE Systems in the UK.

As the CEO for Graphene@Manchester, which includes the business responsibilities for the National Graphene Institute (NGI) and the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC), he will be looking to develop the industrial partnerships and collaborations to accelerate the commercialisation opportunities for graphene.

James is a chartered engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Alan Banks is the Lightweight Structures Supervisor within Innovation and Research at Ford Motor Company. He started work at Ford in 1983 as an apprentice and worked in Chassis Engineering responsible for suspension systems on commercial vehicles until 2019 before his move to Innovation and Research.

His remit with the Innovation and Research team is to lead projects with light-weighting technologies and applications in design with mass production capability. This remit includes material choices from advanced steel to full composite structures, including hybrid technology to produce the best value for automotive applications.

Alan is responsible for a team of 8 engineers with a team of distributed global engineers who help develop Test Driven Development as well as Behavioural Driven Development to ensure customer expectations are met as well as component specifications for lightweight application technology.

He was the team leader on the Composite Lightweight Automotive Suspension System (CLASS) project, which won the JEC World Automotive Application Innovation category in 2018. He is also leading the Composite Hybrid Automotive Suspension System Innovative Structures (CHASSIS) project due for completion in 2021 and has 8 patents to his name.

Alan has a First-Class Honours Degree and an MSc from the University of Bradford in the UK, is a Fellow and Chartered Engineer with the Institute of Engineering Technology and a Fellow of the Institute of Innovation and Knowledge Exchange, as well as a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers. He is also on the Research Board of The Welding Institute Research Committee and a Director of the Board for the Composites UK Trade Association. He is Chairman of the Vehicular Composites Group and the Lightweighting UK Auto Council Strategy Group.

Lukasz Bednarski is an Associate Director at S&P Global. He covers battery materials market with particular focus on lithium, graphite, manganese, cathodes, and anodes materials. Lukasz has worked in the commodity sector spanning physical trading, training, product management, and research. Prior to joining, his interest in battery materials led to the development of an independent industry portal covering the sector. In addition to his degree in economics and business administration from Aalborg University, Lukasz has studied financial topics in China, Russia, Germany, and Liechtenstein. He is the author of popular non-fiction book “Lithium: The Global Race for Battery Dominance and the New Energy Revolution.”

Bernhard Münzing, Sales Director The Sixth Element (Changzhou) Materials Technology, China, is responsible for all international marketing and sales activities of The Sixth Element, the leading Chinese graphene supplier.

Being “Wirtschaftsingenieur Technische Chemie”, he started his career at BASF as a sales engineer for prepreg systems, followed by head of materials management at Brüggemann, with additional responsibility for the market introduction of a new, very active zinc oxide.

After having served for 2 years as a sales manager in a small coating company, he worked for almost 18 years at GELITA, the leading gelatine manufacturer. He held various positions in sales/marketing, thereof 11 years focusing on business development, innovation and key account management. Since July 2016 he is working for The Sixth Element.

Professor Jon Binner is the Professor of Ceramic Science & Engineering in the School of Metallurgy and Materials at the University of Birmingham.

He has published ~250 research papers, edited/contributed to 24 books, given ~80 keynote/plenary/invited talks at international conferences and holds 7 patents. He has won 148 research grants totalling ~£23M, many have been international in nature.

He is the current Past President of ECerS and was the President of the IOM3 from 2012-14. The latter awarded him the Holliday Prize (1995), Ivor Jenkins Medal (2007), Verulam Medal & Prize (2011) & Pfiel Award (2017) and he received an Innovation Award from MBDA (2016).

The focus of his research is the generation of both the necessary scientific understanding and required engineering solutions for the development of processing routes for ceramic materials that display technical and/or financial advantages over existing processes and which yield new or improved materials.

Mr. Barkan founded The Graphene Council in 2013 as global trade and professional community connecting scientists, academics, producers, end-users, and commercial professionals that
have an interest in the research, development and application of graphene.

The mission of The Graphene Council is to be a catalyst for the commercialization of graphene by meeting the needs of the global graphene community, helping to facilitate the development
and application of this unique material.

For more than 30 years, Terrance Barkan CAE has been building trade and professional associations on a global basis, working in more than 70 countries on 6 continents around the
world developing and implementing association growth strategy projects.

To date, The Graphene Council has attracted more than 30,000 members from around the world making it the largest community for people with an interest in graphene. The Graphene Council
produces a weekly graphene intelligence briefing newsletter, contributes to global standards bodies and administers the Verified Graphene Producer™ program.

The Graphene Council is also a Tier 2 Member of the Graphene Engineering and Innovation Centre (GEIC) at the University of Manchester in the UK, the “home” of graphene.

Under the leadership of Mr. Barkan, The Graphene Council has become the leading global organization promoting the adoption of graphene enhanced advanced materials solutions.

Bianca Cefalo is the CEO and Co-founder of Space DOTS Ltd, a Spacecraft Thermal Engineer, Deep Tech Sales Expert and Public Speaker.
Former Space Systems Product Manager at Airbus DS UK, then Director of Aerospace and Defence at Carbice US, Bianca earned her MSc in Aerospace and Astronautical Engineering from the University of Naples ‘Federico II’ (Italy), specializing in Spacecraft Systems, Hypersonic Aerodynamics, Microgravity and Satellite Remote Sensing.
In 2013, Bianca moved to Germany, becoming the youngest Italian analyst assigned to the HP3 Instrument aboard the NASA/JPL Insight Mars Mission, landed on Mars in 2018.
Over the past +12 years, Bianca has contributed to the delivery of multiple science and commercial spacecraft platforms sponsored by NASA, ESA, DLR, UKSA and EU.

Mickey Crozier is a Technology Manager at the MTC with a background in laser materials processing and automated production equipment.  Current responsibilities include leading MTC battery research strategy and ownership of collaborative R&D within the Component Manufacturing Technology group.  Previously Mickey was Director of Process Technology at equipment manufacturer M-Solv where he was responsible for R&D projects spanning energy generation and storage, microelectronics, displays and sensors using a range of advanced manufacturing technologies.  He has been responsible for the successful delivery of many large privately and publicly funded R&D projects

Mickey has 15 years’ experience in laser applications development for a wide variety of industries including automotive, energy and medical.  Previously he worked on the application of ultrafast time-resolved laser spectroscopies for the analysis of energy materials, jointly funded by STFC and Johnson Matthey and on development of production processes for the continuous improvement of various DPSS laser designs.

Mickey holds a BSc in Physics from the University of Sheffield, an MSc in Photon Science from the University of Manchester and an EngD from Heriot-Watt University.

Prof David Curtis:

Professor of Subtractive Manufacturing, University of Sheffield;

Research and Technology Manager of The Machining Group (TMG);

AMRC Co-director of the IDC in Machining Science;

Chair of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult (HVMC) Subtractive Capability Working Group

Dr. Claire Dancer is an Assistant Professor in WMG’s Nanocomposites Research Group. She studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge before gaining her doctorate at the University of Oxford for a thesis on processing methods for the superconducting material magnesium diboride. Her postdoctoral research at Oxford included projects on ceramic armour and electromagnetic materials, and she was a College Lecturer in Materials Science at St Anne’s College, Oxford from 2009 to 2013.

Longworth is an innovation tech company with a 47-year history in proven, effective reclamation of value waste streams. In recent years their long-established DEECOM® pressolysis technology has been increasingly applied to composites reclamation to recover quality, high performance, fibres and resins from post-industrial and post consumer waste.

You thought resins couldn’t be reclaimed alongside fibres? You think rFRP is short, fluffy and difficult to specify? Things are changing.

Jen brings a rare mix of strong commercial background and contagious passion for sustainability. As an elected board director of Composites UK, she strongly feels that by pulling together in collaboration, the composites industry can accept and utilise rFRP as an abundant advanced material in its own right; reducing material costs, optimise reuse and reduce global supply chain issues, becoming the go-to choice for lightweight material selection, all while leading on sustainability in materials.

Jen will present on the topic “Dispelling the Myths of Recycled Composites”

Dr. Michelle Lynch is a Ph.D. in Chemicals and Catalysis and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC).

Her 23 years of post-doctoral experience span catalyst R&D, precious metals market research, patent analysis and consulting.

Michelle is currently the Managing Director of Enabled Future Limited (EFL) – a consultancy she set up to help chemical, catalyst and materials manufacturers to maintain profitable and sustainable optimized technology portfolios.

Prior to setting up EFL, Michelle worked with IHS-Markit, Nexant and Johnson Matthey. She is passionate about sustainability, pollution abatement and helping to create high impact solutions to tackle climate change.

Coming soon…

Neil is Head of Materials Research and Materials Technology Fellow at Rolls-Royce, based in Derby. He is a Fellow and past-President of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Neil has over 25 years of experience of materials engineering for aerospace and other high integrity applications. His current role is focused on materials technology to support new product opportunities in Rolls-Royce including electrical and hydrogen powered flight. Previous roles have spanned multiple business sectors and materials engineering across the product life cycle.

For many years Neil was responsible for Rolls-Royce’s aerospace materials research portfolio, including the company’s extensive external network for materials research.

He is a regular speaker at national and international events and has been a member of numerous national advisory groups. He is a strong advocate of STEM education and a regular speaker at schools’ events.

Steve has worked at BAE Systems for nearly 32 years, joining the company in 1988 having completed his PhD at Southampton University. His current role is the BAE Systems Head of External Partnerships and Programmes, a role that involves linking BAE Systems UK lines of business R&T requirements to activities in UK universities. As part of this role, he works closely with its Strategic University Partners, UKRI engaging in project development and the peer review process. He is also a member of EPSRC SAN.

Prior to this role he managed the BAE Systems internal research programme (£12m R&T Programme pa), a role that involved setting up and monitoring a large number of linked projects (typically 200 plus) within The Advanced Technology Centres, but also at universities and other institutions. The projects were in areas as diverse as welding to abnormal behaviour analysis in crowds.

Before these roles in the technology acquisition part of BAE Systems, Steve ran the Engineering Capability Programme (~£3m) for several years whilst also leading the Materials Engineering Research Group (16 direct reports) within BAE Systems Research Centre.

Biography

• Professor in Advanced Manufacturing at the University of Leeds.
• I have been involved in manufacturing processes research both in academia and industry since 2001.
• Academic since 2012 where my research involves developing Hybrid Additive Manufacturing processes to produce geometrically complex and functional products.
• I have a particular research focus in 3D Printing of ceramics and have led the development of the Ceramic Hybrid Additive Manufacturing Platform (CHAMP) which is enabling industry to use production material feedstocks for 3D printing.
• I have a range of funded projects in the field of Hybrid Additive Manufacturing both looking at fundamental process developments and industry sponsored research.
• All of my research is multidisciplinary and involves collaborative teams from other universities, industry, research centres and medical professionals.

Contact Information E-mail: r.w.kay@leeds.ac.uk Website: https://eps.leeds.ac.uk/mechanical-engineering/staff/802/dr-robert-kay LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertwkay/

Contact number: +44 (0)113 343 2139

Hybrid Additive Manufacturing of high-value ceramic components

Abstract

Work at the University of Leeds has developed a new digitally driven manufacturing process that has the potential to transform the accessibility and exploitation of engineering-grade ceramic components for UK industry by enabling new levels of product customisation, complexity and functionality. This has been achieved through an integrated hybrid additive manufacturing approach comprising of material extrusion of ceramic compounds working in unison with micromachining, allied with process elements for incorporating sacrificial burnout material and accelerants for ensuring in-process build integrity. This talk will cover the development of this technology and showcase ceramic demonstrators alongside providing details on the evaluated material properties.

What will attendees learn

– Learn about the benefits of hybrid Additive manufacturing for producing ceramic components including:

1) Geometric design freedoms

2) Production flexibility

3) Rapid product development

4) New product capability

– Understand more about cutting-edge research in ceramic manufacturing techniques

– Gain an appreciation of the limitations of stand-alone additive manufacturing processes.

Why is this topical at the moment

Current and predominant methods for the manufacturing of engineered ceramic components comprises tooling/template based production methods. Such approaches are only viable in high volume production runs, which not amenable to modern methods of flexible and responsive manufacture. This leads to particular limitations for the high-value manufacturing industries owing to device complexity limitations of these manufacturing processes and their incompatibility with shorter production runs.

Significant recent attention has focused on adapting existing Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes developed for polymer or metal fabrication to meet the future needs of precision engineered ceramics. Common methods such as stereolithography and binder jetting have started to make commercial inroads however the limitations on available materials, density, high shrinkages and/or poor resolution is significantly hampering the widespread adoption of these materials especially in advanced ceramics applications.

Sean has led NIA’s project activities since he joined in 2015. Prior to joining NIA, Sean worked for 10 years at the University of Leeds where he managed collaborative research between the university and industry.

He has worked across diverse collaboration types within nano applications, including European Regional Development Funds (ERDF), a joint venture with the King Abdullah Institute for Nanotechnology, and at senior project management levels in collaborative Framework Programme projects from FP6 onwards.

Dr. Jibran Khaliq is a Senior Lecturer in Northumbria University within Department of Mechanical and Construction Engineering.

His research interests are on the field of synthesising new and innovative materials for sending and actuation applications. His specialisation is in combining ceramics and polymer matrices using various processing techniques to develop novel composites that find their applications in the areas of structural health monitoring for aviation, automotive and construction industry. Other research interests are related to novel piezo plastics and flexible energy storage materials that envision to revolutionize product interface design by means of integrating flexibly without needing a battery.

Dr. Khaliq has published various papers in reputed peer reviewed journals and holds 4 patents. He is currently supervising 1 postdoc, 4 PhDs and 4 master’s students. His work has been recognised internationally and presented several invited lectures at national and international conferences.

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.

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.

Nusrat Ghani was appointed Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in September 2022.

She was previously Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport from January 2018 to February 2020.

Nusrat was a Government Whip between July 2019 and December 2019, and an Assistant Government Whip from January 2018 to July 2019.

Education

Nusrat was the first woman in her family to be formally educated. She attended state comprehensive school before studying at Birmingham City University (BA Government and Politics) and Leeds University (MA International Relations).

Political career

Nusrat was elected Conservative MP for Wealden in 2015.

In parliament Nusrat has been a member of a number of Select Committees, including:

·       Business Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee (2020 to 2022)

·       Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission (2017 to 2018)

·       Foreign Affairs Committee (2017 to 2018)

·       Armed Forces Bill Committee (2015)

·       Home Affairs Committee (2015 to 2017)

Most recently, in her role as a member of the BEIS Select Committee, she has led on a number of enquires, including a probe into the use of Uyghur slave labour in UK supply chains.

Nusrat was part of the UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly from 2020 to 2022 and the Rapporteur of the Science and Technology Committee.

For her work in raising awareness of the plight of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Nusrat was nominated for the NATO Women of Peace and Security Prize, finishing runner-up to the Honourable Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

Career outside politics

Before beginning her career in politics, Nusrat was employed by the charities Age UK and Breakthrough Breast Cancer, and later for the BBC World Service.

UK Country Head for PlasticsEurope.

Geoff is a Fellow of the Inst of Directors, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Environmental Management & Accounting. He is also a member of the UK Trade and Business Commission; the Chair of CAPE – committed to climate education; and a Trustee of Lantra, the Society of the Chemical Industry, and the Association for Science Education.

Geoff’s passion is to close communication gaps especially those between policy makers, industry and education and ensure a sustainable future for all, with future business needs to the fore.

For over 20 years Geoff worked within BASF, the world’s largest chemical company including a decade on the plc board, with roles including communications, EHS, sustainability and corporate affairs. Today Geoff advises and consults to a wide range of organizational strategic and tactical groups covering the private, public and third sectors in arenas including sustainability, science, environment and further education.

He was brought up on a small family farm in South Armagh, N. Ireland, read biology in Liverpool and followed it with a range of post graduate qualifications in Health & Safety and management including a sleepless MBA. His doctorate concerned the strategic business value of social networks. He was delighted to be the 2018 Forward Ladies Male Agent of Change and in 2005 was awarded the Rotary International Service Above Self award.

In his ‘spare time’ Geoff is a driver for his two teenagers; an active Rotarian and has been recognized for his community work both nationally and internationally; historically he played rugby for Waterloo and Halifax; American Football in America and Australia; has sung and danced(!) with operatic societies; represented Breconshire at athletics; and is a published poet. He once won an award for his writing, and raises substantial charitable donations standing on his hind legs in public and talking.

Her responsibilities include managing the successful delivery of BICs portfolio of projects as well as the development of research strategy for the innovation centre and the identification of new business opportunities. She has wide experience in leading and delivering collaborative projects including H2020, FP7 and InnovateUK, including H2020 FTI.

Evelyne holds a PhD in Structural Dynamics related to novel NDT on Reinforced Concrete structures from University of Southampton, UK. Furthermore, she been awarded Chartered Manager status and holds Level 7 Certificate for CMI and received a distinction from Aston University for MSc in Engineering Leadership and Management. She demonstrates high expertise in materials, structural design, numerical modelling and sensors development.

Dr Andrew McDermott is the Technical Director at the British Ceramic Confederation where he is responsible for representing and promoting the interests of UK ceramic manufacturing companies to policymakers and regulators.

His key areas of interest include energy (policy, security, costs) and emissions (net-zero, decarbonisation, emissions trading and environmental permitting). He also works across the industry to help identify, develop and implement energy and carbon reduction measures.

Andrew is a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) and currently chairs the IOM3 Ceramics Society.

Previously, he has worked in several technical roles within ceramics manufacturing, spanning both traditional and advanced ceramics.

Ben Melrose is Technical Director at International Syalons, having joined the company in 2012 as a Development Engineer. He was appointed to the Board of Directors in 2019. After studying Science and Engineering of Materials (MRes) at University of Birmingham, Ben has focussed much of his attention working to develop new sialon-based advanced ceramic materials and fabrication techniques, alongside customers and research partners.

• Years of experience in managing composite innovation and international R&D projects.
• Experience in leading IP strategy for disruptive innovation in composite industry.
• Leading expert in biomimicry applied to composite materials
• Provided technical and technology strategy advise to several companies in the composite industry.
• Active engagement in devising new strategies to innovate the composite supply chain, digitalisation of industry, innovative composite technologies for EV mobility, hydrogen storage, urban air mobility and bio-based composite structures.
• Strong scientific knowledge in mechanics, design, analysis, and numerical methods of composite structures, backed up by an excellent track record of scientific publications, patents and research awards.
• Expertise in research engagement between industry and academia, marketing of research activities to Industry and Innovation in composites.
• PhD from Imperial College London, Aeronautics and Marie-Curie Fellow
• Top class BSCs and MSCs in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Pisa and EPFL

Landon Mertz is the Chief Executive Officer of Cerion Nanomaterials and is a member of its Board of Directors. Under his leadership, he has overseen a period of expansive business growth and investment into innovations to make advanced expertise in custom nanomaterial design & manufacturing both accessible and cost-effective for use by industry.

Throughout his 10+ year tenure with Cerion, Landon has been frequently recognized for his work to advance the growth and maturity of the nanomaterials community and an active member and participant in several industry groups. He has recently been elected the Chairman of the Nanomaterial Industries Association (NIA) Board of Directors. He is a passionate champion of the critical concepts for successful commercialization of products utilizing nanomaterials and is frequently featured as a keynote speaker and contributor to industry publications.

Landon has over twenty years of experience building and monetizing new, innovative businesses across diverse industries. Prior to Cerion, he was the Chief Operating Officer of Festival Network, a firm who develops and acquires large-scale, multi-day music festivals in geographically unique destinations around the globe.

Prior to Festival Network, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Intermedia, an experiential event marketing firm that produced events, meetings and product launches on behalf of Fortune 500 and 1000 companies such as Citibank, Goldman Sachs, Hearst Publishing, Hewlett Packard, JP Morgan Chase, Tommy Hilfiger, and Vera Wang.

Rob Munro is an experienced innovation and technology management research-practitioner on a mission to improve the returns on financial and human investment from innovation activities in organizations. Rob is an industrial associate with IfM Engage the knowledge transfer business of The Institute for Manufacturing at Cambridge University working on materials and sustainability projects.

His twenty-five years of industrial experience with advanced manufacturing multinationals brought a deep understanding of the benefits and pitfalls of companies attempting innovation. He helps clients with providing strategic innovation and technology management advisory to technology-intensive companies and universities to improve strategic technology planning, systems and processes. Clients include Tata Steel, Babcock, GSK, BP, Thales, Costain.

• Rob Peeling graduated in Chemical Engineering from UMIST in 1983.
• Working for Tioxide, ICI Katalco, and Johnson Matthey in roles covering R&D, process design and plant operations.
  • Experienced process safety practitioner
  • Developed thermal plasma arc heater designs
  • Led a team developing novel platinum group metal refining processes
  • Operations manager for organic titanate and zirconate production
• Joined Britest in 2016, and is Technical Services Director
  • Developing tools for identifying and capturing process understanding
  • Providing training on chemical engineering science and process understanding
• UK and EU funded projects
  • Digitalisation of pharmaceutical process development
  • Sustainability and techno-economic analysis of innovative processes
  • Greener manufacture of pharmaceuticals

John Phipps is a degree qualified Chartered Engineer and Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, John has over 20 years’ experience in rotating equipment, composite high temp materials and ceramics.

He has held a wide variety of roles from research and development, testing, application engineering, marketing, senior management, lean manufacturing and currently Business Development.

These roles have taken him to live and work in Dubai, UAE and Edmonton, Canada as well as trips to almost every part of the globe.

Main industries Oil & Gas now automotive, aerospace, outer space and defence. John is currently studying for an MBA with Robert Gordon University and via 3M part of the Lean Six Sigma Program progressing Green Belt.

• Marius Popa is a seasoned Industrial Automation executive with over 20 years of experience in managing large scale digital transformation projects and managing operations for companies like Autodesk, Ansys, Cadence, Blackberry .
• In his current role at Citrine Informatics, Marius is managing the adoption and deployments of AI-driven R&D flows within the Chemical and Manufacturing business across EMEA
• Marius is based in Lausanne, Switzerland

Arnaud Roux is head of European sales department of 3D Ceram Sinto.

After obtaining a Master of International Business Management in France and a Bachelor of business administration in Scotland, Mr Roux worked for Legrand and Air Flow before joining 3D Ceram Sinto in 2016.

In 19 years since its creation, 3D Ceram became a world leader in 3D ceramic printing selling 3D ceramic printers all over the world and having clients covering a broad range of applications (aerospatial, industry, biomedical, defense, electronic…).

Alf has over 40 years’ experience in a wide range of industry. A PhD physicist, working in various technologies, but mainly related to coating (thin-film) technologies at research, development and full-industrial scales in both conventional and vacuum based machinery in sheet and roll-to-roll formats.
Technological areas include, Photovoltaics, Thin film technologies, Large-area and Printed electronics, Barrier and Packaging and more latterly Battery technologies.

Worked in large international and medium sized companies and engaged with several start-ups and UK government agencies with extended periods in California and Japan.

Alf is the Technical Director to Semitronics, representing Forge Nano, Technology Consultant at Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) and Consultant in Dalmatian Technology Ltd.

Bio coming soon…

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).

TTIP Consulting Group’s founder, Dr Andy Wynn, has over 30 years of experience in leading the profitable growth of emerging technologies.

Andrew has delivered successful products into a wide variety of industrial markets and has worked with some of the biggest industrial companies on the planet. He has lived and worked all over the world, including over 6 years based in China

Dr Yuri Zhuk, MBA, PhD, MSc is a founding Technical Director of Hardide Plc, developer and producer of innovative CVD hard coatings used in the Oil and Gas, Aerospace, Flow Control and Advanced Engineering industries qualified by Airbus as Hard Chrome replacement. Dr. Zhuk is responsible for Hardide’s technology, R&D, patenting and applications development. Yuri started carrier as a scientist, later became a technology entrepreneur, gaining over 25 years of international technology business experience in advanced materials. Yuri holds MSc (with Distinction) and PhD degree in Plasma Physics and Chemistry from the Lomonosov Moscow State University and an MBA from the UK Open University, is an author of several patents and technical publications. Dr.Zhuk is a Visiting Fellow at the UK Cranfield University School of Aerospace, Transport and Manufacturing.