QMUL School of Engineering and Materials Science News

Aerospace Engineering student secures full-time position with Airbus following Industrial Placement

k.evans@qmul.ac.uk (Kerry Evans) — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Dr Jae-Hwan Park from the School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS) at Queen Mary University of London visited the Airbus Defence and Space facility in Stevenage to meet his student, David Denis, who was approaching the completion of his one-year industrial placement. The visit provided an opportunity to reflect on David's industrial experience and professional development. Following his placement, David received and accepted an offer of full-time employment from Airbus, marking an important milestone in his engineering career.

A particularly rewarding aspect of the visit was David's reflection on his earlier undergraduate research experience through the QMUL Centre for Undergraduate Research (QMCUR). Under the supervision of Dr Park, David had investigated the transformation of Felixstowe port over the past 40 years, applying theories of innovation and organisational change to explore how businesses evolve and adapt to changing environments.

David said: "The opportunity to work on innovation and future technologies in the industry I am most passionate about is such an excitement. However, it would not be possible without the work I have completed through QMCUR with Dr Jae-Hwan Park as in-depth economic analysis and research radically changed the way I view innovation. Being a SEMS student, you learn the engineering lens in which to view technology but by adding the economic lens, I have been able to work parallel on business development."

He continued: "I even used this work during my interview stage for my placement when I had to deliver a presentation. The skills I have learnt during my research helped me later write bid proposals, business cases, innovation pitches, and strategic white papers all of which then contributed to driving innovation at Airbus Defence and Space and subsequently work I will continue.".

His experience demonstrates how undergraduate research can provide benefits extending well beyond the immediate subject of study. By engaging with innovation theory, business transformation and organisational change, engineering students can develop broader analytical perspectives and transferable skills relevant to complex industrial challenges.

The visit also offered an opportunity to reflect on future engagement with the aerospace and space innovation ecosystem. Dr Jae-Hawn Park expressed an interest in contributing his expertise in innovation research and ecosystem development to support collaboration between Airbus and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), should suitable opportunities arise.

David's transition from a year-long industrial placement to a full-time role at Airbus Defence and Space provides an encouraging example of how undergraduate research, academic mentorship and industrial experience can complement one another.

His achievement highlights the value of initiatives such as QMCUR in connecting academic research with professional development and preparing SEMS students for careers in leading engineering and technology organisations.

Learn more about our Aerospace Engineering programme.

Dr Deepshikha recognised as Google Higher Education Faculty AI Fellow

d.deepshikha@qmul.ac.uk (Deepshikha Deepshikha) — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Dr Deepshikha has been recognised as a Google for Education Higher Education Faculty AI Fellow for her contributions to responsible artificial intelligence (AI) innovation in teaching, learning, and assessment.

The Google for Education Higher Education Faculty AI Fellowship Institute celebrated the recognition on 23 October 2026 at Google's London headquarters. The event brought together higher education academics, researchers, and innovators to explore AI's transformative potential in education and exchange ideas on its responsible adoption.

As part of the Fellowship Institute, Dr Deepshikha was invited to present her work on EduGrade AI, an innovative AI-powered assessment and feedback platform developed at Queen Mary. The platform aims to address one of the most time-consuming challenges facing educators: delivering timely, high-quality and personalised feedback to students.

EduGrade AI uses generative AI to produce rubric-aligned draft feedback and indicative scores while ensuring that educators retain full responsibility for reviewing, validating and approving assessment outcomes.

The Fellowship Institute also offered interdisciplinary discussions, practical workshops, and networking with educators and AI specialists across the higher education sector. Dr Deepshikha was formally presented with her Higher Education Faculty AI Fellowship certificate, recognising her commitment to shaping the future of higher education through AI innovation.

Reflecting on the experience, Dr Deepshikha said:

"It is an honour to be recognised as a Google for Education Higher Education Faculty AI Fellow and to be part of a community committed to transforming higher education through responsible AI innovation.

The Fellowship Institute provided an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas and share our work on EduGrade AI. I strongly believe that AI should empower educators rather than replace their professional judgement. Our goal is to make assessment and feedback more efficient, consistent and meaningful while keeping educators firmly in control."

Dr Catrin Bevan Passes her PhD!

h.r.c.screen@qmul.ac.uk (Hazel Screen) — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Many congratulations to Catrin Bevan for successfully passing her PhD viva, with a thesis entitled, " Engineering novel biomimetic microenvironments to guide heterogenous tendon cell differentiation towards organ-chip system development”. Catrin completed her PhD under the supervision of Prof Hazel Screen, with invaluable guidance from Dr Simon Grossemy and Dr Nidal Khatib alongside second supervisor Prof Martin Knight.

The thesis explored mechanisms to drive stem cells towards different tendon cell populations, offering substantial new insights into the design and delivery of next generation tendon-on-a-chip models.

Catrin was examined by Prof Nick Evans from Southampton and Dr Josephine Wu from QMUL, who both commented on the high quality of Catrin’s work.

Bill Gates Recognises Queen Mary Interdisciplinary Approach to Artificial Intelligence

t.t.chowdhury@qmul.ac.uk (Tina Chowdhury) — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 23:00:00 GMT

A visit by Bill Gates to Queen Mary University of London highlights the importance of bringing together expertise across engineering, medicine and data science to tackle global healthcare challenges.

Queen Mary University of London recently welcomed Bill Gates, who met research students and discussed the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI).

During the visit, Gates praised Queen Mary's university-wide approach to AI, recognising the importance of involving researchers and students from disciplines beyond mathematics and computer science.

This interdisciplinary vision is reflected in research across the School of Engineering and Materials Science, where engineering, clinical science and computational approaches are brought together to address complex healthcare challenges.

Dr Tina Chowdhury, from the Centre for Bioengineering, School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS), and the Digital Environment Research Institute at Queen Mary, leads collaborative research exploring how AI and linked electronic health records could improve our understanding of pregnancy complications, including miscarriage, preterm birth and stillbirth.

The research brings together engineers, clinicians and data scientists to investigate how routinely collected healthcare data can support the development of predictive tools, while addressing important questions surrounding data quality, population representation and health inequalities.

Dr Chowdhury commented:

"AI has enormous potential to transform healthcare, but its success depends on collaboration between disciplines. Bringing together engineers, clinicians, researchers and patients enables us to develop technologies that address real clinical needs. Equally important is ensuring that the healthcare data underpinning AI are representative and reliable, so that innovation benefits all communities."

Clinical PhD researcher presents maternal health AI research to Bill Gates

Dr Zara Arain, obstetrician and PhD researcher supervised by Tina Chowdhury at Queen Mary University of London, had the opportunity to meet Bill Gates during his visit and present their collaborative research on artificial intelligence and maternal health.

Our research combines clinical expertise, engineering and data science to investigate how linked maternal and neonatal electronic health records could support the prediction of pregnancy complications and improve maternity care.

Dr Zara Arain commented:

"Our research brings together engineering, clinical expertise and data science to explore how linked electronic health records and AI could improve the prediction of pregnancy complications, including miscarriage, preterm birth and stillbirth.

"AI offers exciting opportunities to improve maternity care, but we must also ensure that the data used to develop these technologies are representative, reliable and inclusive. Interdisciplinary collaboration is essential to translating these advances into meaningful improvements in women's and babies' health."

Strengthening interdisciplinary partnerships

The research is undertaken through collaborations involving:

Professor Greg Slabaugh, Professor of Computer Vision and AI, Director of the Digital Environment Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London.
Professor Anna David, Professor of Obstetrics and Maternal Fetal Medicine and Director of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Institute for Women's Health at University College London and Consultant in Obstetrics and Maternal Fetal Medicine at University College London Hospital (UCLH).
Professor Steve Harris, Consultant in Critical Care, Chief Research Information Officer at UCLH, Principal Research Fellow in Translational Data Science at UCL Institute of Health Informatics.

These partnerships bring together expertise in maternal and fetal medicine, clinical engineering, healthcare informatics and machine learning, helping to bridge the gap between AI research and its potential clinical application.

New Tommy's Funding to Advance Miscarriage and AI research

Building on these collaborations, the multi-disciplinary team have secured funding from Tommy's to support Olivia Law PhD investigating miscarriages, stillbirth and preterm birth using electronic health record and ultraview datasets, in partnership with clinical and academic collaborators at UCLH and Manchester Foundation NHS Trust.

The project will explore how routinely collected healthcare data can improve our understanding of miscarriage, with a focus on identifying relevant clinical information and strengthening the use of linked datasets in pregnancy research.

This new investment provides an opportunity to extend interdisciplinary research partnerships between Queen Mary and Manchester, supporting the development of more robust approaches to investigating pregnancy loss and informing future research into earlier identification and prevention.

Together, our research demonstrate how collaboration between engineering, medicine and data science can help address important challenges in women's and maternal health.

Bill Gates visit reinforces the importance of Queen Mary's interdisciplinary approach to research, education and innovation, creating opportunities for the next generation of researchers to translate technological advances into meaningful improvements in healthcare.

Read the official Queen Mary news story: Bill Gates visits Queen Mary to meet the leaders of tomorrow

Queen Mary Aerospace Students Impress AIAA Visitors and Explore Closer Collaboration

e.avital@qmul.ac.uk (Eldad Avital) — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 23:00:00 GMT

The School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS) welcomed representatives of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) on 21 October 2026 to explore establishing an AIAA Student Branch at Queen Mary University of London. Lindsay Mitchell, AIAA Director of Regions and Sections, and Martina Bruno, AIAA European Manager, met with staff and students to discuss opportunities for closer engagement with the international aerospace community.

The visit celebrated Queen Mary's students' growing involvement in AIAA activities. Since 2022, undergraduate and master students have consistently submitted research to AIAA Regional Student Conferences, achieving first-place awards in 2022 and 2024, with two further submissions in 2026. Pedagogical research has also highlighted an association between conference submissions and improved academic performance (Chetehouna et al., 2026, Education in Practice Journal).

Dr Eldad Avital, Aerospace Programme Director, introduced the School's programmes, research and facilities, supported by Dr Sathiskumar Ponnusami, Dr Vasily Gryazev and Dr Nick Zang.

Students from the School's Aerospace Society, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (QMUAS), Rocketry (Aurora) and Space Exploration (QMSEDS) teams enthusiastically presented their ambitious projects and showcased their engineering developments. The AIAA visitors were particularly impressed by the breadth and depth of extracurricular activities, technical achievements and students' motivation to pursue aerospace engineering beyond the classroom.

Discussions explored establishing an AIAA Student Branch, tighter collaboration with the AIAA and AIAA's plans to launch a European Student Conference in the near future, opening exciting new opportunities for Queen Mary's aerospace students.

The visit concluded with a tour of SEMS's aeronautical laboratories.

Upcoming Events at QMCUR

g.viola@qmul.ac.uk (Giuseppe Viola) — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 23:00:00 GMT

The Queen Mary Centre for Undergraduate Research (QMCUR) is currently preparing two major upcoming events that will bring undergraduate researchers together to share their work, exchange ideas, and build connections across disciplines.

1. Undergraduate Research Forum: Engineers Meet Gene Editors (3rd Edition)

Dates: 17–19 November 2026
Details: Building on the success of the previous two editions, this immersive three-day forum will bring together students from QMCUR and the Gene Editors group at the University of Westminster, alongside other invited student speakers. The forum aims to foster collaboration between the engineering and gene-editing research communities. Participants will present and discuss undergraduate research projects, explore different research methodologies, and engage in multidisciplinary scientific exchange. A detailed program will be announced at a later date.

2. British Conference of Undergraduate Research (BCUR) 2027

Dates: 22–23 April 2027
Details: QMCUR is organizing and hosting BCUR 2027, a major national multidisciplinary conference. The event will welcome undergraduate researchers from universities across the UK and abroad to present and showcase their work. Participants can strengthen their communication, presentation, and professional skills while networking with peers, academics, and the wider research community. Further information is available on the official conference website.

Remembering Prof Cees Bastiaansen

j.busfield@qmul.ac.uk (James Busfield) — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 23:00:00 GMT

It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Professor Cees Bastiaansen on the 15 October 2026. Cees (also known as Kees) joined SEMS at Queen Mary as a part-time professor in 2007. He was a highly valued colleague, who collaborated extensively with many of us and taught brilliantly. When Cees entered the room, the energy levels went up, and you knew that new ideas and interpretations were sure to develop. Many of us benefitted from these inspirational moments.

Cees supervised several successful Queen Mary PhD students and was a co-investigator on many grants with Queen Mary colleagues. Cees collaborated widely but also extensively producing significant high impact research papers with many of us including most notably Ton Peijs, Emiliano Bilotti, Han Zhang, Lorenzo Botto, Martin Heeney, Dimitrios Papageorgiou and Nicola Pugno. Cees officially retired in 2021 but remained on as a Visiting Professor.

Throughout his time at QM, Cees also co-worked at Eindhoven University from where he had previously obtained his PhD. Prior to this he started his academic career as an scientist at ETH Zurich having previously worked in industry for DSM as a project manager. His research interests covered processing and structure-property relationships of polymers with an emphasis on aligned, oriented systems such as high-performance fibres and films. He worked extensively on devices that adopted the functional properties of these systems for sensors, actuators and smart windows. He collaborated with many industrial partners through various multi-partner projects, including several EU, UK and NL government funded projects.

Cees wrote more than 200 peer reviewed papers, was a co-inventor of more than 80 international patents and was a co-founder of more than 7 start-up companies. Cees was also a science and technology advisor at multinationals, small and medium sized enterprises and start-ups.

Cees was awarded with the Most Innovative Scientist of The Netherlands Award (NL), the Science and Innovation Award of the Dutch Polymer Institute (NL) and the Swinburne Medal from the IOM3 in the UK in 2018. The last award recognises people who have made an outstanding contribution to the advancement and knowledge of any field related to polymers. This award is the most prestigious polymer industry award in the UK. As part of the award Cees presented the Swinburne lecture on “Static & Responsive Chain-Extended Macromolecules”.

There are undoubtedly many former students and colleagues who have much to thank Cees for and who like us will be very sorry to hear this sad news. Our thoughts at Queen Mary are with Cees's wife, Yvonne and his many friends and family.

There is a condolence card on Meihong’s desk that will be posted to Cees’ family in early November. You can either send Meihong a personal message to include in the card or you can include it yourself in person.

Dr Deepshikha awarded Queen Mary Academy Fellowship in AI in Education

d.deepshikha@qmul.ac.uk (Deepshikha Deepshikha) — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Dr Deepshikha, from the School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS), has been awarded a Queen Mary Academy Fellowship focused on AI in Education as part of the University’s Curriculum 2030 programme.

The fellowship comes as Queen Mary begins implementing its new AI in Assessment taxonomy in the 2026/27 academic year. Working with the Queen Mary Academy and colleagues across Schools, Institutes and Faculties, Dr Deepshikha will support programme teams in developing AI literacy and enhancing curriculum and assessment design. She will provide practical guidance to help educators integrate AI thoughtfully into teaching and learning.

The selection panel noted that her application strongly aligned with the fellowship's aims, particularly its emphasis on supporting programme teams and creating institutional impact.

“AI is already changing how our students learn and how we assess them, and programme teams need practical, discipline-aware support to respond well,” said Dr Deepshikha. “I’m delighted to join the Queen Mary Academy Fellows community, and I look forward to working with colleagues across the University to put the AI in Assessment framework into practice in ways that protect academic standards and genuinely benefit students.”

The appointment builds on Dr Deepshikha’s work in AI-enhanced assessment and feedback, including the development of EduMark AI, which supports educators in producing rubric-aligned feedback while retaining academic oversight. Through the fellowship, she will share effective practice and build staff confidence in using AI, supporting Curriculum 2030’s ambition to deliver a consistently excellent education for all Queen Mary students.

Queen Mary AI Assessment Innovation Selected for Google for Startups Immersion EMEA 2026

d.deepshikha@qmul.ac.uk (Deepshikha Deepshikha) — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 23:00:00 GMT

EduGrade AI, an AI-enabled assessment and feedback platform developed by Dr Deepshikha at the School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS), Queen Mary University of London, has been selected for Phase 1 of Google for Startups Immersion EMEA 2026, powered by Antler.

The international programme brings together AI innovators from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, offering opportunities to engage with Google experts, participate in technical masterclasses and collaborate with fellow innovators.

EduGrade AI aims to enhance assessment and feedback in higher education through responsible, educator-controlled artificial intelligence. The platform generates rubric-aligned feedback and indicative marks, while educators retain full control over final assessment decisions.

This selection adds to EduGrade AI’s growing international recognition.

Dr Deepshikha said: “I am delighted that EduGrade AI has been selected for this international programme. It is a valuable opportunity to learn from leading AI experts, exchange ideas and explore how responsible AI can give educators more time for meaningful feedback, while keeping their professional judgement at the heart of assessment.”

The achievement reflects SEMS’s continued contribution to educational innovation and the responsible use of emerging technologies in higher education.

QMUL and GPU-Prime secure ATI Programme funding to boost GPU-native Large Eddy Simulation toolchain

s.karabasov@qmul.ac.uk (Sergey Karabasov) — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Prof Sergey Karabasov from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and UK-based CAE software company GPU-Prime, backed by leading aerospace OEMs, advanced air mobility companies and UK universities, have been awarded a grant towards the total project cost of £617k through the ATI Programme, which supports technology innovation in the UK aerospace supply chain.

The GPU-accelerated Unsteady Simulations for Turbulent Flow and Aeroacoustics (GUSTFAST) R&D project will deliver a memory-efficient, GPU-native Large Eddy Simulation (LES) toolchain for unsteady aerodynamics and aeroacoustics, enabling earlier, faster and more cost-effective design decisions in aerospace programmes. It combines GPU-native algorithms based on the CABARET method with AI-driven optimisation and template-based pre- and post-processing workflows tailored to specific aerospace applications.

High-fidelity LES remains underutilised in industrial aircraft and propulsion design. As regulatory requirements tighten and new platforms mature, OEMs and SMEs need reliable and scalable tools to predict unsteady flow and aeroacoustic interactions earlier in the design cycle.

GPU-Prime, with support from QMUL, has been developing GPU-native LES technology for aerospace applications for many years, validating it with industry partners as well as through EU Horizon 2020 and AeroAcoustics Research Consortium (AARC) projects.

The ATI Programme SME funding will accelerate development and delivery of a CAE software suite optimised for critical aerospace applications. The ATI Programme is delivered in partnership between Aerospace Technology Institute, Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, and Innovate UK.

Attend the Digital Twin Workshop, delivered in collaboration with Bentley Systems

k.evans@qmul.ac.uk (Kerry Evans) — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Join the Digital Twin introductory workshop, delivered in collaboration with Bentley Systems, on Thursday 15 October 2026, 11:00 - 14:00, in the Francis Bancroft Building, Queen Mary Mile End campus.

The workshop will provide participants with a structured overview of digital twin technology and its application in understanding real‑world environments, including buildings, infrastructure, and cities. The session will guide attendees through building a simple digital twin prototype using industry‑standard, browser‑based tools and real datasets.

Participants will gain an understanding of the principles underpinning digital twins, how they differ from conventional 3D models, and how data, geometry, and interaction support engineering analysis and decision‑making. The workshop is designed to be exploratory and accessible, requiring no prior coding experience, and will introduce attendees to Bentley’s education‑focused digital twin ecosystem.

Book here.

Talk to your journey planner: How AI brings conversation to public transport

k.evans@qmul.ac.uk (Kerry Evans) — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Talk to your journey planner: How AI brings conversation to public transport

A new Queen Mary study introduces ChatPlanner, an AI framework that lets travellers ask for a quieter, step-free, safer or more scenic journey in ordinary language, and builds those wishes directly into the route search. Tested on London's public transport network, it reliably delivered journeys that travellers could actually make, whereas a state-of-the-art general-purpose AI model equipped with mapping tools frequently fell short.

Beyond the fastest route

Most journey planners focus on travel time and the number of changes, and treat personal needs as filters applied after routes are found. The best route for a wheelchair user, or a parent with a pushchair at rush hour, may therefore never be considered.

A new study sets out a different approach. It appears in Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, one of the most influential journals in transport research and a global reference point for how artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies are reshaping the way people travel and how cities function. It forms part of the journal's special issue Foundation Models and Large Language Models in Urban Mobility, the first the journal has devoted to foundation models. This marks a landmark moment as the AI behind tools like ChatGPT reaches the world of transport. The issue brings together work on how such AI can help cities tackle congestion, inequality, safety and climate resilience.

The paper is authored by Tingting Yang and Dr Jun Chen from the School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS), together with Chenhao Xue from the University of Oxford and the Oxford e-Research Centre. The research was conducted under the supervision of Dr Chen.

ChatPlanner combines a large language model, the technology behind modern conversational AI, with a multi-criteria route-search algorithm. Travellers describe their journey in their own words, and the system works out how much accessibility, crowding, safety and sightseeing matter to them. It then searches for routes that reflect those priorities, including options that standard planners overlook. To teach the system to understand the language of travel, the team trained it on requests from eight types of traveller, from daily commuters to families with children and older people, across everyday situations such as rush hour and bad weather.

The design is what makes it dependable. The language model only interprets what the traveller wants, while a dedicated routing algorithm works out the journey using real timetable data. This avoids the wrong stations, non-existent connections and missing legs that appeared when a general-purpose AI model was asked to plan routes itself.

"We hope this work contributes to more conversational, inclusive and human-centred public transport planning," said Tingting Yang.

The paper is published open access and is free to read.

Cite: T. Yang, C. Xue, J. Chen* (2027) ChatPlanner: A large language model framework for personalized public transit routing, Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 194, 106017. DOI: 10.1016/j.trc.2026.106017

Dr Muzumil Anwar Receives Silver Reviewer Certificate for Teaching Recognition Programme

exx949@qmul.ac.uk (Muzumil Anwar) — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Dr Muzumil Anwar has received the Silver Reviewer Certificate from the Queen Mary Academy Teaching Recognition Programme in recognition of his contribution as a reviewer supporting colleagues seeking professional recognition for their teaching practice.

Alongside his teaching responsibilities, Muzumil contributes to the Teaching Recognition Programme by reviewing Fellowship applications and supporting colleagues in reflecting on and evidencing their higher education teaching practice. His involvement reflects an ongoing commitment to professional development, peer support and the enhancement of teaching and learning across the university.

The recognition also builds on Muzumil's wider contribution to academic development, including mentoring colleagues pursuing Associate Fellowship and Fellowship and sharing good practice in teaching, assessment and student support.

Three members from Panwisawas’ Research Group delivered talks at Alloys for Additive Manufacturing Symposium (AAMS 2026) at the University of Cambridge

c.panwisawas@qmul.ac.uk (Chinnapat Panwisawas) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Led by Dr Chinnapat Panwisawas, three members from Panwisawas’ Research Group have attended the Alloys for Additive Manufacturing Symposium (AAMS 2026) at St. John’s college, the University of Cambridge between 16th and 18th September 2026.

The AAMS 2026 was the 9th edition (and 10th anniversary) of Alloys for Additive Manufacturing Symposium Series and co-organised by University of Cambridge and University of Sheffield. The AAMS 2026 was attended by more than 150 people who are academics, industrialists and government officers from 20 countries across the globe.

Dr Panwisawas was invited to give a Keynote Talk on “Multi-scale multi-physics modelling as a computational materials engineering framework for science-informed materials discovery.” His talk focused on computational materials engineering enabled materials discovery and the development of a holistic computational AM framework to enable predictive multiscale materials design for materials engineering, especially, discovery of new materials and processing route for high-temperature and biomedical applications.

Apart from Dr Panwisawas’ Keynote Talk, two members from his “Computational materials engineering of advanced manufacturing (CMEAM) Research Group" delivered two oral presentations.

Jang Terry Griffin (his second-year PhD student) gave a talk on “Exploiting oxide formation to control melt pool dynamics and material properties in metal Additive Manufacturing: A high-fidelity multiphysics framework for oxygen transport and oxidation. ”
Qianglong Wei (his visiting PhD student from Shanghai Jiao Tong University) gave a talk on “Quantifying the absorptivity in laser additive manufacturing and welding of aluminum alloy and copper in the conduction mode.”

All three talks from CMEAM Research Group were very well received and generated several discussions and potential collaborations in the near future.

Liz Tanner chairs European Society for Biomaterials 50th Birthday Session

k.e.tanner@qmul.ac.uk (Elizabeth Tanner) — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

The European Society for Biomaterials (ESB) was founded in 1976 so at this year's conference in Antwerp 7-11 September a Special Session on the history and activities of ESB over the last 50 years was chaired by Liz Tanner and Gino Ambrosio (University of Naples and periodic visitor to the IRC in Biomedical Materials). Liz was Secretary General of ESB 2005-2009 as well as the IRC in Biomedical Materials running the 2001 ESB conference in London.

The session speakers included Josep Planell (former QMC Materials PhD student more later Rector of the Open University of Catalonia) and Liz. The subjects covered included changes in the requirements and assessments of biomaterials in the last 50 year, the newer applications of biomaterials including tissue engineering and lab-on-a-chip, some of the current research areas of SEMS. Other discussions included the use of AI in Biomaterials discovery and teaching methods when providing distance learning versus in person lectures.

Professor Julien Gautrot gave an invited talk at ESB in the session on Women's Health discussing engineering niches and systems to model ovarian cancer.

Dr Jie Yang Successfully Passed his PhD viva

wei.tan@qmul.ac.uk (Wei Tan) — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Congratulations to Dr Jie Yang who passed his PhD viva for a thesis entitled, "Multiphysics Modelling and Optimisation of Advanced Battery Electrodes." Jie completed his PhD journey under the supervision of Dr Wei Tan, with second supervisor Prof Ana Sobrido providing invaluable guidance throughout.

The thesis tackled mass transport and interfacial reaction limitations across two key energy storage systems: lithium-ion battery silicon anodes and vanadium redox flow battery electrodes. Jie developed coupled phase-field and elastoplastic fracture models to design porous and hollow ellipsoidal silicon particle architectures that resist the fracture and pulverisation caused by huge volume expansion during cycling. On the flow battery side, he correlated bismuth electrodeposition conditions with catalytic performance and elucidated bilayer carbon electrode mechanisms — work that delivered substantial gains in discharge capacity and energy efficiency.

Jie's examiners were Dr Salvatore Grasso (internal) and Dr Xu Yang (UCL, external), who both engaged closely with the multiphysics and multiscale nature of the work spanning experiment and computation.

His research has already resulted in one published paper — on phase-field modelling of fracture in silicon particles during lithiation-delithiation (Engineering with Computer), with two further papers on redox folow battery currently under review.

Wei commented that "Jie has been very creative and persistent to address problems in research and has created strong bond with Dr Tan and Prof Sobrido's group. He has mastered both experiment and computational skills, it has been wonderful to work with Jie in the last 4 years."

Dr Rehan Shah and engineering student discuss co-creation as invited panellists for UK History for Diversity in Mathematics workshop

rehan.shah@qmul.ac.uk (Rehan Shah) — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Dr Rehan Shah and second-year undergraduate student Amelia Stringfellow discussed their experiences of staff-student co-creation on their QMUL scholarship project ‘Beyond the Formula’: Empowering students through co-creation of inclusive mathematics curricula (also undertaken in collaboration with third-year undergraduate Nilah Holmer) as invited panel speakers for the UK History for Diversity in Mathematics Workshop held on 7th and 8th September 2026 at the University of Manchester.

As part of the discussion, they shared insights related to the emergence, implementation, benefits and challenges of undertaking co-creation work on this project, which has been impacting over 800 SEMS students each year from Dr Shah's first and second-year undergraduate mathematics modules EMS412 and EMS506 by raising awareness of inclusivity and diversity in STEM disciplines. As Steering Group Member of the UK History for Diversity in Mathematics Network, Dr Shah was also invited to deliver a 20min short talk to share the details of the implementation, feedback and impact of the project undertaken at QMUL since the past 3 years.

The panel discussion and talks were very received and raised insightful questions and sparked interesting avenues for future exploration on the topic from the 32 attendees, both in-person and online. It was also refreshing to see how Dr Shah and his students' work had inspired colleagues from other universities (Maynooth University in Ireland) to co-design and embed similar EDI resources within their own mathematics curricula. The details and outputs from the work have been featured in two co-authored staff-student journal publications: one of which has already been published in New Directions in the Teaching of Natural Sciences, while the second is due to be published very soon in MSOR Connections.

Dr Deepshikha's Responsible AI Assessment Project Shortlisted for QS Reimagine Education Awards 2026

d.deepshikha@qmul.ac.uk (Deepshikha Deepshikha) — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Dr Deepshikha from Queen Mary University of London’s School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS) has been shortlisted for the Learning Assessment Award at the QS Reimagine Education Awards 2026 for her project, Responsible AI Assessment and Feedback Innovation.

The recognition follows a highly competitive international evaluation process. This year, the QS Reimagine Education Awards received more than 2,200 projects across 15 award categories, and over 1,000 international judges evaluated them.

This recognition reflects work done with colleagues and students at Queen Mary, and I'm grateful to Giuseppe Viola and Xinru Deng for their contributions.

The project centres on developing and implementing EduMark AI, an educator-controlled AI platform designed to support assessment and feedback while ensuring the educators retain final academic judgement.

Rather than replacing educators, EduMark AI uses artificial intelligence to generate rubric-aligned feedback, structured analysis, and indicative scoring that academic staff can then review, refine, and approve. The approach is designed to improve the efficiency, consistency and usefulness of feedback while maintaining human oversight throughout the assessment process.

The work has developed from an initial SEMS-led innovation into a wider programme of institutional testing, external engagement and responsible AI development. It has included pilots within Queen Mary and other educational settings, alongside work on data protection, governance, educator control and integration with institutional learning environments.

Dr Deepshikha said:

“I am delighted that our Responsible AI Assessment and Feedback Innovation project has been shortlisted for the QS Reimagine Education Awards 2026. This recognition is particularly meaningful because our aim has always been to explore how AI can support educators while keeping human judgement firmly at the centre of assessment.

EduMark AI is not about replacing educators. It helps them provide timely, personalised, and constructive feedback more efficiently, while retaining full responsibility for the final academic decision. Being recognised in the QS Reimagine Education Awards gives us further encouragement to continue developing and evaluating this approach.”

The QS Reimagine Education Conference and Awards will take place from 6–8 December 2026 at the InterContinental London – The O2.

With wider institutional pilots now underway, the shortlisting adds to a growing body of work at Queen Mary on responsible AI and evidence-led assessment, built on the principle that AI should extend academic judgement rather than substitute for it.

James Busfield Chairs ECCMR 2026 in Oxford

j.busfield@qmul.ac.uk (James Busfield) — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Prof James Busfield has recently chaired the European Conference on Constitutive Modelling of Rubber XIV (ECCMR) from the 9-11 September 2026. Having hosted the conference previously at QMUL in 2003, the event was organised in a new location in the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford. There were 88 talks and 24 poster presentations filling a full three-day program.

Despite the best efforts of UK National Air Traffic Control System to mess up the program on the opening day, in the end only a small number of delegates did not arrive, with some delegates still turning up on the final day having had to deal with 48 hours of air travel chaos. James and the rest of the local organizing committee: James Lee (IOM3), Davide de Focatiis (Nottingham University) and Mokarram Hossain (Swansea University) had their work cut out to reorganize the schedule to ensure that every speaker was able to present once they had arrived.

The conference was a great success with a significant number of excellent talks including 7 from QMUL, that highlighted significant recent breakthroughs in the modelling of elastomer materials.

The local organizing committee would like to thank all the sponsors (Endurica, SPC Rubber Compounding, Birla Carbon, Dunlop, Leartiker, Coesfeld, Englemann & Buckham), the scientific committee members, the session chairs, the speakers and all of the delegates for the spirit of collaboration that has always been a very important feature of this conference.

One Material, Two Functions: Ferroelectric Ceramic Combines Large Strain with Highly Reversible Electrical Tunability (accepted in Nature Communications)

h.x.yan@qmul.ac.uk (Haixue Yan) — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have developed a ferroelectric ceramic that combines two useful properties that are normally difficult to achieve together: large mechanical deformation and highly reversible electrical tunability. Such a combination could help simplify future electronic devices that need to both move or change shape and rapidly adjust their electrical response.

By carefully adjusting the composition of a samarium-modified PMN-PT ceramic, the researchers controlled nanoscale polar regions inside the material. An optimised composition achieved 76.4% reversible electrical tunability and 0.31% strain under an electric field of 2 kV/mm, while retaining low remanent polarization.

The study shows that controlling these nanoscale polar structures can balance electrical and mechanical responses within a single material, providing a promising design strategy for adaptive electronics, precision actuators and tunable communication technologies.

Tiny Strains, Big Impact: New Lead-Free Material Enables Tunable Wireless Technologies (Publised in Science Advances)

h.x.yan@qmul.ac.uk (Haixue Yan) — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have developed a new way to control the electrical properties of materials for future adaptive wireless technologies. The team discovered that introducing a small amount of calcium into a layered ceramic creates tiny internal strains at the atomic scale. These strains generate nanosized polar regions that can respond rapidly and reversibly to an applied electric field.

This approach overcomes a longstanding challenge: materials that can be strongly tuned electrically often suffer from high energy loss and other undesirable electrical properties. The new lead-free ceramic combines strong tunability with relatively low electrical loss and low permittivity, making it attractive for microwave applications. The researchers demonstrated its practical potential by incorporating the material into prototype microwave resonators and antennas, where the operating frequency could be adjusted using voltage or temperature.

The work provides a new materials-design strategy for more adaptable and energy-efficient communication technologies.

Dr Deepshikha delivered King’s College London's inaugural REISE seminar series with an invited talk on responsible AI in assessment

d.deepshikha@qmul.ac.uk (Deepshikha Deepshikha) — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Dr Deepshikha delivered the inaugural lecture of the Research, Evaluation and Innovation in STEM Education (REISE) seminar series at King’s College London on 9th September 2026.

Hosted by Dr Helen Coulshed, Associate Vice Dean Education and Senior Lecturer in Chemistry Education from the Department of Chemistry at King’s, the seminar, “Empowering Educators with AI: Responsible Innovation in Feedback and Assessment,” explored how artificial intelligence can support more effective and timely feedback while keeping educators firmly at the centre of academic decision-making.

The presentation focused on a human-centred approach to AI-enabled assessment, where technology supports rather than replaces professional judgement. The discussion considered how responsible AI can improve feedback clarity for students, reduce marking workload and turnaround times for staff, while maintaining appropriate educator oversight.

The seminar attracted significant interest across the higher education sector, with 74 attendees representing 26 universities, and 69% of participants joining from outside King’s College London. Universities represented included Bristol, Durham, Nottingham Trent and Edinburgh, with international participation extending to OTH Regensburg, Karolinska Institute and the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati.

The breadth of participation highlights growing sector-wide interest in practical, responsible approaches to AI in assessment and feedback, and reflects SEMS’ contribution to wider conversations about educational innovation and the future of assessment.

The full seminar recording is now available on YouTube.

Placements Bootcamp welcomes 70 students

a.wilkes@qmul.ac.uk (Ayden Wilkes) — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Last week, Placements Officer Helen Green and Career Consultant Pash Selopal co-hosted the Placements and Internships Bootcamp, preparing second-year students to search for, apply for and secure work placements.

Across two days, around 70 students, mostly in their second year studying Engineering and Materials Science, took part in activities to identify strengths, write applications and ace interviews, as well as meeting real employers from WSP and AWE.

Alumnus Max Woolmer, who now works at AWE, and returning AWE placement student Zainab, both joined the event to give their advice and perspectives as people who had previously been in the students' shoes.

Professor Nike Folayan also joined the event to help the students with their networking and up-skilling, and Careers Consultant Pash Selopal led sessions on interview and assessment centre preparation.

A pre and post-event survey demonstrated that students' confidence in being able to secure a placement rose by nearly a whole point on a five-point scale.

Reflecting on the event, Helen said "these results provide encouraging evidence that targeted employability and personal development interventions can help students feel better prepared to navigate recruitment processes, present themselves effectively to employers and pursue future career opportunities with greater confidence."

Some of the students who attended commented:

"It was useful for identifying what my strengths are, which I found really helpful for when I need to sell myself in cover letters and interviews."

"Very informative with discussion and collaboration with people who have worked in industries and other students."

"I learnt about finding my strengths and how to present them. Also learned of new tools to track and improve my applications."

This is now an annual event, taking place at the beginning of September each year. Keep an eye out for next year's dates next summer.

Dr María José Munguía Romero Successfully Completes Her PhD

j.busfield@qmul.ac.uk (James Busfield) — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Congratulations to Dr María José Munguía Romero who passed her PhD defence on the 14th August 2026 for a thesis entitled, “Sustainable Future Footwear and Fashion Technology.” Maria completed her PhD journey as a member of James Busfield’s Soft Matter Group in SEMS at QMUL. Her supervision team included Dr Veronika Kapsali (University of the Arts London), Li Wang (QMUL) and Keizo Akutagawa (QMUL). This was very much a multidisciplinary project tackling a huge global issue.

Maria’s examiners were Prof Kate Goldsworthy (Central Saint Martins) and Dr Sara Hajikazemi. The viva was completed in just 90 minutes with both examiners enjoying Maria’s discussion of the challenges of making sports shoes more sustainable from a designer’s perspective and the associated challenges of generating a measure of this sustainability that is much more transparent to the consumers who buy the products.

James Commented that “Maria was working on a sustainability project that was quite different research area to the other members of the Soft Matter Group. She has proven to be remarkably resourceful at building networks of people both at QMUL and more broadly who she could work with to complete this very challenging and important project. It has been a wonderful experience working with her for the last four years.”

Maria is the eighth student from James’ group to complete her PhD in the last 18 months. She has published a journal paper in Scientific Reports already on her work with another couple of papers already in the pipe line.

Aerospace engineering student ranked 5th in UK Future Leaders

a.wilkes@qmul.ac.uk (Ayden Wilkes) — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Nduka Amakihe, a final-year MEng Aerospace Engineering student in the School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS), has been ranked 5th nationally on Powerlist Magazine's Future Leaders 2026/27 list.

Nduka represents Queen Mary among 150 rising Black leaders recognised from across the UK.

Alongside his degree, Nduka has been involved in multiple extra curricular groups and initiatives. He founded and led Team Polaris, one of four Queen Mary teams competing in the UK National Rocketry Championship, which launched in June 2026. Team Polaris' rocket was only one of four competing teams to clear every review gate and reach the pad.

Nduka also serves as Software Development Officer for the Aerospace Engineering Society, where he leads Mach Relay, a hypersonic re-entry simulation project, and as Head of Control Systems within the university's Electronics Society, helping prepare an unmanned aircraft for competition. He has now taken the responsibility of Aerospace Society president and Head of Operations at Aurora.

"This year's work has mostly happened out of view," Nduka said. "It means something to have it recognised at this scale, and it's given me more reason to keep pushing."

Congratulations to Nduka on this recognition.

Queen Mary academics contribute to new Handbook on Teaching Skills in Engineering

f.akinmolayan@qmul.ac.uk (Folashade Akinmolayan Taiwo) — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Three academics from the School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS) have contributed to a new international handbook on teaching transferable competencies and skills in engineering education.

The SEFI Handbook on Teaching Transferable Competencies and Skills in Engineering was officially launched on Wednesday 9th September 2026 at the 54th SEFI Annual Conference, hosted by the Czech Technical University in Prague.

Published fully open access by TU Delft Open Publishing, the handbook brings together the expertise of 155 contributors from 23 countries, spanning five continents and representing 56 institutions and professional bodies. It provides a comprehensive and practice-oriented resource for engineering educators, curriculum developers, programme leaders, educational researchers and students seeking to develop the transferable skills and competencies needed by engineers.

Three academics from the Centre for Research in Engineering and Materials Education contributed to the handbook:

Dr Faith Nightingale, corresponding author for Chapter 2.2: Process Management on a Process Level and Chapter 3.1: Navigating the Complexities of Competency Assessment: An Introduction.
Dr Folashade Akinmolayan, corresponding author for Chapter 3.4: Assessment Rubrics: Design, Development and Implementation.
Dr Rehan Shah, together with Ilanthiraiyan Sivagnanamoorthy (Student Researcher), contributed to Chapter 2.9: Embedding the Core Triad: Spatial Ability, Visualisation, and Representational Literacy.

The handbook explores the development and integration of transferable competencies across engineering education, covering key concepts and frameworks, curriculum design, accreditation and quality assurance, assessment, exemplary programmes and approaches to evaluating educational interventions and outcomes. Importantly, the handbook connects research and theory with practical guidance for educational practice, supporting educators to embed transferable competencies across individual modules and whole engineering programmes.

The handbook is available to read free of charge online, providing an accessible resource for colleagues and students across the engineering education community. Read the SEFI Handbook on Teaching Transferable Competencies and Skills in Engineering.

Why graphene’s electrons have been counted the wrong way for decades

a.wilkes@qmul.ac.uk (Ayden Wilkes) — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

The standard method for extracting charge-carrier density from electrical measurements overcounts carriers in graphene by a factor of two to five, a new Queen Mary study shows — meaning reported mobilities have been systematically underestimated, and the best samples may be far better than the record books say.

A puzzle hiding in plain sight

Two numbers describe how well a material conducts electricity: how many charge carriers it has, and how easily they move — the mobility. Neither can be measured directly. Instead they are inferred from two routine measurements, the Hall effect and the electrical resistance, using textbook formulas developed for semiconductors such as silicon.

For years those formulas have produced a puzzle. Nominally identical graphene samples, made the same way, report mobilities that differ by a factor of ten. Sample quality has usually taken the blame.

Counting only the electrons that can move

A study published in Nano Letters by Dr Yiwei Sun from the School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS) and the University of Birmingham, together with Dr Oliver Fenwick (SEMS), Dr Dimitrios Papageorgiou (SEMS), Professor Sir Colin Humphreys (SEMS) and Professor David Dunstan (School of Physical and Chemical Sciences), with collaborators Dr Matthew Coak at the University of Birmingham and Dr David Holec at Montanuniversität Leoben in Austria, argues that the blame lies with the formulas.

The textbook method counts every electron above the edge of the conduction band as a carrier. In a semiconductor, where an energy gap separates the bands, that is exactly right. But graphene is a semimetal: it has no gap, and electrons fill the band continuously up through the Fermi level — the energy that separates occupied from empty states. Only electrons close to that level can respond to an electric field; those deeper in the band are locked in place by the filled states around them.

“Counting every electron in the band is like counting every person in a packed stadium to explain the flow through the exits,” said Dr Sun. “Only the people near the exits are actually moving. The others are there, but they’re not going anywhere.”

The team’s “Fermi model” changes the counting rule: carriers are counted from the Fermi level rather than from the band edge. In graphene at typical doping the difference is a factor of two to five — and because mobility is obtained by dividing the measured conductance by the carrier density, every overcount of carriers becomes an equal undercount of mobility.

A test with no adjustable knobs

The difficulty with any new counting rule is proving it. Conventional carrier extraction has a hidden advantage: it comes with adjustable quantities — the mobility, and how it varies with doping and temperature — that can be tuned to reproduce almost any measurement. A method that can always be made to fit can never be shown to be wrong.

The researchers’ solution was a new way of plotting the data in which those adjustable quantities cancel out entirely, so that each theory makes a single fixed prediction. In these “double-normalized polar” coordinates the conventional model predicts a vertical line and the Fermi model predicts a smooth arc — and no choice of material parameters can turn one into the other.

Five independent graphene datasets — measurements on four graphene-on-sapphire samples, and published data on ultraclean graphene from Cornell University — all follow the arc.

“For the first time, the conventional model was in a position where it could fail,” said Dr Sun. “And it did — while the Fermi model matched every dataset with zero fitting parameters.”

Why nobody noticed

The team also explains why a flaw in such a widely used method went unnoticed for so long. Whenever the Fermi level sits inside an energy gap, as in silicon or gallium arsenide, the new counting rule reduces exactly to the old one — so decades of success in semiconductors are entirely consistent with the correction. The two rules only part company in metals and semimetals, where the semiconductor formulas were borrowed without a second look.

Better than we thought

The most immediate consequence is for graphene’s record books. Reanalysed with the corrected count, the team estimates that the highest-quality graphene samples may have intrinsic mobilities exceeding 300,000–500,000 cm²/V·s — well beyond current record claims — and that mobility benchmarks across the two-dimensional materials literature will need re-evaluation. The same correction applies to other materials whose electrons behave like graphene’s, including Weyl semimetals and the surface states of topological insulators.

“The best graphene is even better than we thought,” said Dr Sun. “We just hadn’t been counting it properly.”

The paper is published open access in Nano Letters. The team also pays tribute to the late Dr Theo Kreouzis from Queen Mary University of London, whose early insights and enthusiasm helped shape the work.

Dr Sathiskumar Anusuya Ponnusami receives Global Young Investigator Award

a.wilkes@qmul.ac.uk (Ayden Wilkes) — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Dr Sathiskumar Anusuya Ponnusami has been awarded the 2027 Global Young Investigator Award by the American Ceramic Society, the largest professional body in the field.

This award is presented annually to an outstanding early-career researcher from the international ceramics community. Dr Ponnusami will win $1,500 and will subsequently give a keynote lecture at the Society’s flagship conference, the 51st International Conference and Expo on Advanced Ceramics and Composites (ICACC 2027) in Florida, where the award will also be presented.

Ceramics are used in some of the harshest environments we engineer, inside jet engines, power plants and spacecraft, because they can withstand temperatures where most other materials cannot. The challenge is that they are brittle, and predicting when and how they will fail is still difficult. Dr Ponnusami’s research focuses on developing computational models and frameworks to help design advanced ceramics and composites, including materials with capabilities such as self-healing, and to predict their failure more quickly and reliably.

Dr Ponnusami’s work began while working at TU Delft through his PhD, and continued at University of Oxford, and now continues at Queen Mary University of London, where he leads research in this area. His keynote speech, titled From Fracture Mechanics to Mechanics-Guided AI: Predictive Modelling and Design of Advanced Ceramics and Composites’, will draw on his research. Throughout his career he has collaborated with IISc, University of Florida, EPFL, and other industry partners.

Recently, his group has been combining machine learning with mechanics to make these simulations much faster, while preserving their reliability. This allows them to explore thousands of possible material designs rather than just a handful, and helps identify promising materials and designs for demanding applications.

Dr Ponnusami said “I am honoured to receive this prestigious award. It recognises work built over many years with brilliant students and collaborators, and it comes from the ceramics community itself, which makes it especially meaningful. I am proud to be carrying that work forward at Queen Mary, where we are bringing AI and mechanics together to design better high-temperature materials.”

Prof Sergey Karabasov gives talk at Roy K. Amiet Memorial Symposium

s.karabasov@qmul.ac.uk (Sergey Karabasov) — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Professor Sergey Karabasov delivered an invited talk at the Roy K. Amiet Memorial Symposium, held in Naples from 6th - 8th September 2026.

The symposium was organised by TU Delft, Politecnico di Torino, Roma Tre University, and the University of Naples Federico II.

Over the past decade, the field of aeroacoustics has undergone a profound transformation, driven by the widespread adoption of advanced experimental and computational techniques in both academia and industry. While several applications have reached a high level of maturity within the scientific community, others are emerging, bringing fresh theoretical, experimental, and numerical challenges. These developments, along with the associated scientific and technological challenges, were discussed by leading aeroacoustics researchers from Europe, the United States, and China who attended this three-day event.

Dr Rehan Shah presents scholarship work on research visit to Cornell University

rehan.shah@qmul.ac.uk (Rehan Shah) — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Dr Rehan Shah visited Cornell University, USA as part of a week-long collaborative research visit from 30th August to 6th September 2026, supported by a Queen Mary-Cornell Global Research Seed Grant Award, received in conjunction with Dr Alexandra Werth (Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University).

Their proposed funded project titled 'Towards an AI-Motivated Mathematical Skills Inventory for Future Engineers' aims to develops a framework for a skills-based mathematical assessment instrument that bridges the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical AI-oriented, engineering applications. To achieve this goal, Dr Shah and Dr Werth have established a synergistic, firm and lasting collaboration between their research groups at Queen Mary and Cornell respectively to accelerate and translate mathematics and engineering education research.

During the visit, Dr Shah spent valuable time with Dr Werth's group to discuss the scope and progress on their project, the first phase of which will involve piloting an existing Calculus Cognitive Diagnostic (CCD) assessment inventory developed by the LASSO education project across modules from all four years of their respective institution's engineering degree programmes. This cross-institutional, cross-sectional longitudinal study will help gauge and evaluate students' abilities to retain core calculus knowledge acquired through the spectrum of their academic degree studies from Years 1-4. The findings from the project will be shared through global conference presentation proceedings and peer-reviewed journal publications and will spur further applications for larger external grant funding.

In addition to this, Dr Shah also met with a wide variety of STEM academics, education developers, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students at Cornell to share and discuss insights from his varied mathematics and engineering education scholarship research projects. He also delivered an invited research talk for the Cornell Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER) seminar on his pioneering co-creation scholarship work titled 'Teaching Ethics and Sustainability in Mathematics? Surely You Must Be Joking!' which discussed findings gathered over three years in conjunction from working with two undergraduate engineering students on embedding ethics and sustainability across the mathematics curricula within the department. The talk, which was extremely well attended with at least 40 people turning up from a wide range of STEM departments and faculties, was very well received and several academics were inspired by Dr Shah's work in this area and posed insightful questions in their keenness to explore it further.

All in all, the visit was immensely successful in establishing capacity for future collaborations through the exchange of ideas between colleagues at both Cornell and Queen Mary focusing on discipline-based STEM education research and demonstrated great potential in improving STEM teaching, learning, and assessment from a cultural, institutional, and disciplinary perspective.