The Postgraduate Research Team at School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS), Queen Mary University of London has organised the Russell Binions PhD Symposium 2025 on Monday 28th April 2025.

Russell Binions Memorial PhD Research Symposium is an annual conference organised for SEMS PhDs and PDRAs, to practise presenting at conferences as a core part of their PhD programme, with the involvement of PDRAs in training and organisation. The Symposium is in memory of Dr Russell Binions (1979-2017) who was an engaging and enthusiastic colleague, highly popular teacher, and Former Deputy Director of Materials Division.

In 2025, 34 Third-year PhD students from three Research Centres – Centre for Bioengineering, Centre for Intelligent Transport and Centre for Sustainable Engineering – have presented their PhD projects. With the attendance from about 100 academic staff, postdoctoral researchers and PhD students across SEMS, we were successful to host such a productive, comprehensive and stimulating research environment to support all researchers at SEMS.

An invited talk from Dr Khai D.Q. Nguyen on 'Navigating the space between Academia and Industry: A journey toward tackling PFAS challenges' inspired the PhD students, introducing them to different career paths both in academia and industry through Dr Nguyen’s journey.

We celebrated the success of our students by recognising the two best papers per research Centre for the last 12 months by current SEMS PhD students and the two best presentations per research Centre, as decided by centre PDRAs and academics after the talks. The prize Ceremony was presented by Professor Hazel Screen, Head of SEMS to all PhD students listed below. Huge congratulations to all PhD awardees.

Presentation Prize

Centre for Bioengineering

• First Prize – Rory Bennett “Surface-Based Ultrasound Scans for AI-assisted Screening of Prostate Cancer”
• Second Prize – Monica Calderon-Ortega “Exploring migration response of tendon cells in a pathophysiological relevant in vitro system”

Centre for Intelligent Transport

• First prize – Sarah Hussain “Toward Intelligent Prosthetics: sEMG-Based Gesture Recognition and Force Estimation Enhanced by Bioinspired Tactile Feedback”
• Second prize – María José Munguía Romero “A Practical Framework for Designing Circular Trainers”

Centre for Sustainable Engineering

• First prize – Wanting Hu “Field sensitive Ba_1-x Sr_xTi_0.89 Hf _0.11O₃ ceramics with ultrahigh dielectric tunability”
• Joint Second prize – Zixuan Wu “Enhanced electrocaloric effect in lead-free relax or ferroelectrics via point defect engineering”
• Joint Second prize – Harry Jackson “Investigating the Movement of Particles Through Microporous Media using Molecular Dynamics and Machine Learning”

Journal Paper Prize

Centre for Bioengineering

• First Prize – Jiayu Li
  R. Lu, J. Li, Z. Guo, Z. Wang, J. J. Feng, Y. Sui. Transient flow-induced deformation of cancer cells in microchannels: a general computational model and experiments. Biomechanics and Modelling in Mechanobiology (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s10237-024-01920-9
• Second Prize – Linxiaohai Ning
  L. Ning, C. Limpabandhu, Z.T.H. Tse. Amphibian-Inspired Locomotion Strategy for a Slime-Based Magnetic Soft Robot. Robotics Reports 2:1(2024) 152-165. DOI: 10.1089/rorep.2024.0039

Centre for Intelligent Transport

• First Prize – Waruna Maddumage
  W. Maddumage, S. Ouenzerfi, S. Harmand, A.Cairns, A. Paykani. Thermal management of hairpin winding traction motors in electric vehicles: Parametric evaluation of impinging oil jet cooling using CFD simulations, Applied Thermal Engineering 273 (2025) 126414. DOI: 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2025.126414
• Second Prize – Yulan Lyu
  Y. Lyu, Y. Pang, T. Liu, W. Sun. Determining hyperelastic properties of the constituents of the mussel byssus system. Soft Matter 20(11) (2024) 2442-2454. DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01677C

Centre for Sustainable Engineering

• First Prize – Zhihao Xing
  Z. Xing, X. Jiang, R.F. Cracknell. Investigation of the chemical mechanism of pollutant formation in co-firing of ammonia and biomass lignin. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 77 (2025) 126-137. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2024.06.171
• Second Prize – Brenda Resendiz-Diaz
  B. Resendiz-Diaz, E. Sadler, S. Schwikkard, J.C. Bear, C.R. Crick. The Fabrication of Superhydrophobic Coatings using Food-Grade Waxes Dispersions. Advanced Materials Interfaces (2025) In press.