Omar Dilery won the Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers Prize for being the best graduate in any Materials MSc program stream in 2025. The prize was announced at the Industrial Liaison Forum in SEMS on the 5th November. Omar completed a project under the supervision of Prof James Busfield in the Soft Matter Group at QMUL on “Characterising Viscoelastic Foams in the Midsole to Enhance Elastic Recoil”

Omar’s project examined the elastic response of foams used in high performance training shoes. The project developed a home-built torsion pendulum to measure the viscoelastic behaviour of the foams well outside of the normal operating range of a standard laboratory Dynamic Mechanical Analyser. The project was done in collaboration with the company Zotefoams from Croydon with support from recent SEMS alumni Karolina Dabkowska.

James Busfield commented, "That from the outset, Omar was the model of the perfect MSc student. He applied himself to building the test set up, doing the measurements and then evaluating the results. The company have been very complimentary about the work, and this award is very good recognition for an exceptional student, who was a pleasure to teach."