QMUL School of Engineering and Materials Science News

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 +0100

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 +0100

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 +0100

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 +0100

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 +0100

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 +0100

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 +0100

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 +0100

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 +0100

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.

First year students' research published in Journal of Applied Physics

g.viola@qmul.ac.uk (Giuseppe Viola) — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 23:00:00 +0100

Queen Mary Centre for Undergraduate Research (QMCUR) is "popping champagne and raising a toast" to Jiang Feng and Valentin Marku, both first-year students in Aerospace Engineering, on the publication of their first paper titled "Sensitivity kernel for local Hall effect measurements: An adjoint finite-element approach" in the Journal of Applied Physics. This remarkable achievement was developed under the excellent supervision of Dr Yiwei Sun.

The study introduces a methodology to probe local inhomogeneities in semiconductor and 2D-material wafers by generating Hall‑conductivity maps using a dual‑configuration four‑point probe, with the adjoint method used to map the probe's spatial sensitivity. This detects non‑uniformities as small as 0.1%, without requiring any devices to be fabricated on the wafer, offering a novel, non‑destructive screening tool for semiconductor quality control.

It is worth highlighting the elegance of the mathematical formalism and tools used in the paper, which demonstrate how far Jiang and Valentin have moved beyond foundational learning during this venture.

A special note of merit goes to Dr Yiwei Sun, who guided Jiang and Valentin with trust and openness exposing them to the full complexity of the problem and solution without confinement. This should serve as an exemplary model of how undergraduate students can be mentored and empowered in their research journey.

The work will continue with a follow-up study focused on the experimental validation of the methodology. As part of their development, Jiang and Valentin will take part in a deep-dive scientific discussion where they will explain their work in further detail to QMCUR’s leadership and respond to questions in a PhD viva-like session. Additionally, they will disseminate their work at the upcoming research showcase events and conferences at QMUL over the next few months.

Congratulations to everybody involved; this is a shining example of what undergraduate research can achieve when talent, trust, and excellent supervision come together!

Dr Deepshikha recognised among UK's 2026 TechWomen100 Award winners

d.deepshikha@qmul.ac.uk (Deepshikha Deepshikha) — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 23:00:00 +0100

Dr Deepshikha, in the School of Engineering and Materials Science at Queen Mary University of London, has been named a winner of the 2026 TechWomen100 Awards, recognising her contribution to technology, responsible AI and innovation in education.

The TechWomen100 Awards, organised by WeAreTechWomen, celebrate emerging and mid-career women making an impact across the UK technology sector. Dr Deepshikha was selected as one of the 100 winners in the Individual category for 2026.

Her work focuses on the responsible use of artificial intelligence in education, particularly in assessment and feedback. She is the founder and lead of EduGrade AI, an educator-controlled AI assessment and feedback platform developed at Queen Mary.

EduGrade AI is designed to help educators generate rubric-aligned draft feedback and indicative marks while keeping academic judgement firmly with the educator. The project aims to reduce the administrative burden associated with marking while improving the consistency, quality and usefulness of feedback provided to students.

The platform has been trialled across different assessment formats and has demonstrated substantial reductions in marking time. The project is also progressing through wider institutional pilots, technical integration and commercialisation activities.

Dr Deepshikha said:

“I am delighted to be recognised as a TechWomen100 Award winner. This recognition is particularly meaningful to me because my work brings together education, technology, and responsible AI. AI has enormous potential to support educators, but it is important that we develop and use these technologies in ways that preserve academic judgement, transparency and human oversight.

I am very grateful to my colleagues, collaborators, students, and everyone who has supported the development of EduGrade AI. I hope this recognition will also encourage more women from education and academia to see themselves as contributors and leaders in the technology sector.”

The award reflects the growing impact of interdisciplinary innovation within SEMS, where expertise in science and engineering is increasingly being combined with emerging technologies to address challenges in teaching, assessment and student experience.

Dr Deepshikha will join fellow TechWomen100 winners at the 2026 awards celebration at Mansion House in London in October.

Congratulations to Zixuan Wu on successfully defending his PhD thesis

h.x.yan@qmul.ac.uk (Haixue Yan) — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 23:00:00 +0100

Congratulations to Zixuan Wu who successfully passed his PhD viva on Wednesday 1st September 2026 with his thesis titled ‘Response of Dipoles in Linear and Non-linear Dielectric Oxide Ceramics’.

His PhD examiners were Prof Antonio Feteira and Dr Yao Lu.

Zixuan was supervised by Dr Haixue Yan.

Dr Rehan Shah wins Queen Mary SEED Educator Prize, students win SEED awards

rehan.shah@qmul.ac.uk (Rehan Shah) — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 23:00:00 +0100

Dr Rehan Shah has won Queen Mary's Student Enhanced Engagement and Development (SEED) Annual Educator Prize for 2025-26, awarded to only one of three academic staff recipients across the university each year for recognition of significantly impactful co-creation scholarship work with students. The panel commented on how Dr Shah had "engaged co-creatively with students and the extent to which the co-creative activities have led to impact." They also noted how "it is work like this which continues to enhance and shape education at QMUL, and on behalf of the university community we thank you for your contribution."

Dr Shah has an active scholarship research group 'QMULtipliers', which has had 20 undergraduate and postgraduate student members thus far, 13 of whom have already successfully received SEED awards from Queen Mary Academy for their co-creation scholarship contributions across 11 different scholarship projects, several of them being funded, cross-institutional ones. In addition to Dr Shah receiving a certificate for the prize from Queen Mary Academy, two of his group's second-year Design Engineering undergraduate students, Maneeha Siddiki and Sara Hamandi also received SEED awards for their work with Dr Shah on respective cross-institutional scholarship projects.

Maneeha was recognised for her significant contributions as a student research assistant on Dr Shah's project “AI in Academia" which involved conducting an audit of educational developers’ use of, and attitude towards GenAI in higher and further education, in collaboration with Dr Matthew Cole (Hartpury University), Dr Noleen Chikowore (University of Leeds) and funded by a 2025 Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) Research Grant.

Maneeha was instrumental in contributing to every stage of the project which included conducting literature reviews on empirical research and institutional policies, designing and disseminating a national UK-wide staff survey, facilitating focus groups with academics and educational developers, and undertaking qualitative and quantitative data analysis. The project generated evidence from 49 survey respondents across 16 UK institutions and featured 3 focus groups involving 13 staff participants from 6 institutions. She worked with academic colleagues to compare interpretations of emerging themes, discussing how educator experiences should be represented in the findings, before agreeing on the final thematic framework. She presented the findings with the team as a poster presentation at QMUL Festival of Education (June 2026), an oral presentation at the SEDA Spring Conference held at Liverpool John Moores University (May 2026) and will produce forthcoming open-access blog articles for the SEDA website and a co-authored research paper for SEDA’s flagship Innovations in Education and Teaching International (IETI) journal.

Sara on the other hand, worked with Dr Shah on a student-community partnership project titled "Social Enterprise Education Design with AI", funded by a 2025 Researching, Advancing and Inspiring Student Engagement (RAISE) Network Research Grant, in collaboration with Prof Anne Preston (UCL), Craig Martin (UCL) and Liza Fletcher (community partner from E17 Films). The project focuses on co-designing (with students and a local East London community organisation (E17 Films)), a template framework for a new, shared social entrepreneurship module/short course using ethical and creative applications of GenAI.

Sara's main contribution was in transforming the learning design into a practical structure for the proposed module. Drawing on established design thinking approaches, she helped shape the process into an iterative cycle of 'Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test and Reflect'. She also considered how each stage could support student learning, where community partner involvement could be built in, and how reflection could strengthen the process. This helped move the project from broad aims towards a usable module framework. She presented the findings with the team as a poster presentation at QMUL Festival of Education (June 2026) (which received the 3rd Prize for Best Poster among 62 posters), an oral presentation at the RAISE Annual Conference (Sept 2026) and will produce forthcoming open-access blog articles for the RAISE website and a co-authored research paper for RAISE’s flagship Student Engagement in Higher Education journal.

The panel were exceedingly impressed by both of their contributions work stating that both were "very good applications that clearly explains the project and how you co-created with staff and the community partner". They also noted how the application "demonstrates how you reflected during the process to make the project as successful as possible, how you’ve reflected on all the skills you’ve developed and it's very impressive that you reflected on how to use GenAI responsibly as part of the project and designed it to ensure that AI wasn’t being used to replace human creativity."

Ms Umaiza Bhatti wins SEED Award for Notable Contributions to QMCUR’s Educational Infrastructure

g.viola@qmul.ac.uk (Giuseppe Viola) — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 23:00:00 +0100

We are delighted to announce that Ms Umaiza Bhatti, a second-year Biomedical Engineering student currently serving as Development and Engagement Lead at QMCUR, has been awarded the SEED Award in recognition of her contributions to enhancing the learning environment and supporting tools for undergraduate researchers.

During her tenure, Umaiza has developed several high-impact resources that are now integral to the Centre's operations, including:

Induction Package: a detailed document that introduces newly enrolled students to the philosophy, operational procedures, and resources available at QMCUR, alongside a “learning agreement” that sets mutual expectations and commitments.
Structured Logbook and Opportunity Tracker: these tools support students in managing their research projects and professional development. Both facilitate systematic activity tracking and navigation of the Vitae Researcher Development Framework, regarded at QMCUR as the current gold standard for researcher development. The Structured Logbook provides a streamlined way to document progress, focusing on key aspects while maintain high-quality records. The Opportunity Tracker helps students identify and pursue a wide range of additional opportunities, including bursary applications, research internships, and placements. The QMCUR core team will explore the use of these tools in partnership with the students in appraisal-like process to oversee development and co-design potential future growth pathways.
Tools for Managing Complex Schedules: these instruments were developed to empower students to balance QMCUR research projects with curricular and other extracurricular commitments. These resources include time management strategies, prioritisation techniques, task-switching methods, and guidance on preserving leisure time and personal well-being. The content was originally developed for a series of in‑person workshops and was then adapted into a dedicated QM+ module, to widening participation, allowing for a deeper, more structured engagement with the material, and offering a more immersive, self-paced learning journey. All new QMCUR members are required to complete this module within their first month of enrolment. The module includes a range of quizzes, exercises, and assessed tasks, with a certificate awarded upon successful completion, subject to Umaiza's approval.

This SEED award reflects Umaiza's dedication, creativity, and strong commitment to improving the undergraduate research experience at QMCUR. We believe her work will influence and benefit all students who encounter these tools, helping them not only at QMCUR but also in other contexts, as lifelong skills.

Umaiza is currently undertaking her placement year at Unilever, working within the R&D team. She will be stepping down from her QMCUR role but will remain available in an advisory capacity to support her successor, who is currently being recruited.

EduGrade AI selected for Innovate UK ICURe Exploit spinout-readiness programme

d.deepshikha@qmul.ac.uk (Deepshikha Deepshikha) — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 23:00:00 +0100

EduGrade AI, an educator-controlled assessment and feedback platform developed and led by Dr Deepshikha in the School of Engineering and Materials Science, has been selected for the Innovate UK ICURe Exploit Business and Spinout Readiness programme.

The achievement marks an important step towards potential spinout formation and the wider adoption of EduGrade AI across higher education.

EduGrade AI was developed to address a significant challenge facing universities: providing detailed, consistent, and timely feedback while managing increasing academic workloads. The platform uses artificial intelligence to generate rubric-aligned draft feedback and indicative scores against criteria defined by educators.

Academic judgement remains central to the process. Educators review, edit, and approve all feedback and marks before anything is released to students.

“AI should give academics their time back, not take their judgement away. Every decision that matters still sits with the educator,” said Dr Deepshikha.

The selection follows EduGrade AI’s successful participation in the ICURe Explore programme. Through an extensive market discovery process, the team engaged with university leaders, academics, professional services teams, and technology partners to evaluate the need for responsible AI-enabled assessment infrastructure.

Following the team’s presentation to the ICURe panel in Belfast, the project was invited to continue towards potential spinout formation through the Exploit programme. The panel recognised the team’s strong domain knowledge, market engagement and understanding of the challenges surrounding AI adoption in higher education.

ICURe Exploit programme will support the team in translating this research-led innovation into scalable assessment infrastructure, developing the wider leadership team, and preparing for potential spinout formation.

Remembering Prof John Rose

j.busfield@qmul.ac.uk (James Busfield) — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 23:00:00 +0100

It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Professor John Rose. John first joined Queen Mary as an undergraduate student in Mechanical Engineering in 1955. He graduated from his undergraduate degree in 1958. He stayed on to undertake research for a PhD with advisor Prof Edwin Le Fevre, which he completed in 1964. John also completed a Doctor of Science degree in 1979. He was made an Assistant Lecturer in 1961, was promoted to Lecturer from 1962, and was further promoted again to Reader in 1975. He was appointed as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1985.

John was the Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering from 1991–1995. Officially, John started taking his pension in 2001, but he most definitely did not retire. He carried on teaching part time for many years whilst maintaining a full-time research profile winning grants and publishing his research.

He was a Fellow of the IMechE since 1980 and of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers from 1995. He was a member of the UK Heat Transfer Committee and of the UK Heat Transfer Society of which he was president from 2007 to 2008.

His teaching interests were in the fields of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and heat transfer. He held sabbatical appointments at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US Naval Postgraduate School and the Universities of Tokyo and Kyushu.

In 2018 John received the Max Jakob Memorial Award bestowed jointly by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers which is “the highest honour in the area of heat transfer that the participating societies can bestow”. In 2024 he was awarded the UK National Heat Transfer Committee’s Lifetime Contribution Award, awarded in recognition of a “long-term, high-quality contribution to research and teaching in heat transfer”.

Over a long and distinguished career, Prof John Rose became a world recognised pioneer in a wide range of topics related to phase-change heat transfer. The elegance of his approach was evident in the way he extracted essential insights and developed simple closed-form equations with excellent predictive capability. Such features make his research particularly amenable to implementation in real-world designs, rather than being relegated only to scholarly publications. His research has been widely adopted in a variety of industries, including nuclear, process plant, refrigeration and air conditioning. His papers are widely quoted not only in journal literature but also in textbooks and reference handbooks. His work was supported by and benefited many industrial organisations including: British Gas, AEA Harwell, National Nuclear Corp, Cal Gavin Ltd, Ford Motor, Modine Co., Compagnie Industrielle d’Applications Thermiques. John also won grants from national or governmental funding bodies including EPSRC, Royal Society, Leverhulme Trust, National Science Foundation and Office of Naval Research (USA).

John was a highly sought after speaker for invited lectures and presentations throughout the world at conferences, in universities and companies, notably in the USA, Japan, Korea, Brazil, India, as well around Europe and the UK.

But out of all these achievements there is one thing that stands above all the others. John Rose joined Queen Mary in 1955 as an undergraduate student. He never left the institution and last year we recognised the 70th anniversary of his first walk along the Mile End Road to Queen Mary by awarding him the Queen Mary honorary fellowship. Throughout these seven decades, John gave unstinting continuous and loyal service to Queen Mary. We regularly recognise staff who have achieved 25 years of service, but we are not aware of anyone else who has given so selflessly, honourably and enduringly to the Queen Mary cause.

There are undoubtedly many former students and colleagues who have much to thank John for and who like us will be very sorry to hear this sad news. Our thoughts at Queen Mary are with John's wife Lisa, his daughter Jacqueline, his son-in-law, Neil and his grandchildren Heidi and Christina at this difficult time.

John’s funeral took place Wednesday, 19th August at The City of London Crematorium. This was followed by a wake at The North Star Pub.

Engineering students visit Griffon Marine shipyard

e.avital@qmul.ac.uk (Eldad Avital) — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 23:00:00 +0100

Undergraduate engineering students visited Griffon Marine’s shipyard in Portchester on Friday 7th August to present their projects, discuss future collaboration and gain first-hand experience of marine engineering in industry.

During the visit, Morshid Sarker presented his project on offshore aquaculture service vessels, while Amira Montalto and Anton Poon presented their work on water recirculation units. The projects were supervised by Dr Eldad Avital, who also led the visit, with support from PDRA Dr Shuo Mi and PhD student Raima Rahman.

The students toured Griffon Marine’s facilities, seeing several hovercraft under construction and learning about vessel design, manufacturing and marine operations. Technical discussions also explored continuing the collaboration between Queen Mary University of London and Griffon Marine through future MEng and PhD projects in offshore aquaculture. The visit ended with lunch overlooking the bay.

The visit demonstrates the School’s commitment to giving our students opportunities to work on real engineering problems, interact directly with leading industry, and connect their academic studies with engineering practice.

The visit and student activities formed part of the Safe and Sustainable Offshore Aquaculture programme supported by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, the Water Recycling project funded by the Royal Society, and the QMUL STRIDE programme.

International partners come together for first annual offshore aquaculture workshop at Queen Mary

e.avital@qmul.ac.uk (Eldad Avital) — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 23:00:00 +0100

Queen Mary University of London hosted the first annual hybrid workshop of the Safe and Sustainable Offshore Aquaculture project on 5th August, led by Dr Eldad Avital, the leader of the international consortium.

The workshop brought together academic and industrial partners from the UK, Norway, Greece, India and China to review Year 1 progress and plan the next stage of the project.

The Queen Mary team presented progress in high-fidelity CFD and fluid–structure interaction modelling, offshore cage systems, renewable-energy integration and service-vessel studies.

Excellent in-person contributions from AKVA Group Norway covered biofouling mitigation and CFD, while NTUA Greece presented work on cage and experimental design, hydrodynamics and CFD validation, and Griffon Marine UK discussed the development of service vessels for offshore aquaculture. BFP-Tech Greece and IIT Madras India joined online, presenting research on anti-biofouling treatments and wave-energy converters, simulation and experimental testing.

Technical discussions focused on cage reliability, biofouling, renewable-energy integration, experimental validation and strengthening integration between the different research activities.

The workshop demonstrated the value of bringing together academia and industry across several countries and disciplines to address the engineering challenges of moving aquaculture further offshore and to develop the skills and training needed by the sector.

The project is funded by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation.

Queen Mary research presented at IEEE WCCI 2026 explores AI-assisted optimisation

a.wilkes@qmul.ac.uk (Ayden Wilkes) — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 23:00:00 +0100

Research from the Centre for Intelligent Transport, School of Engineering and Materials Science at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), presented at the 2026 IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI 2026) in Maastricht, explores how machine learning can improve optimisation algorithms.

The study, conducted in collaboration with Bangor University, addresses a common challenge in combinatorial optimisation: algorithm parameters are usually fixed or manually tuned, but this often leads to poor performance across different problem instances.

To overcome this, the proposed method uses machine learning to predict good parameter settings based on problem features, allowing the optimisation algorithm to adapt to each instance before the search starts. This is an example of learning-assisted optimisation, where AI is used to enhance traditional optimisation methods.

The approach was tested on the Electric Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem and showed better performance than standard globally tuned configurations on unseen instances.

The paper, “Instance-Aware Parameter Configuration in Bilevel Late Acceptance Hill Climbing for the Electric Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem,” was co-authored by Yinghao Qin, Dr Xinwei Wang, Dr Mosab Bazargani (Bangor University), and Dr Jun Chen, and presented by Yinghao Qin at WCCI 2026.

Reflecting on the work, Yinghao Qin said:

"Machine learning can help optimisation algorithms adapt to different problem instances, improving their performance without replacing them. We hope this work contributes to the growing field of learning-assisted optimisation and encourages closer integration between AI and optimisation."

The work highlights Queen Mary’s contributions to computational intelligence and the growing role of AI in optimisation.

Queen Mary team wins third place at IEEE WCCI 2026 International Optimisation Competition

a.wilkes@qmul.ac.uk (Ayden Wilkes) — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 23:00:00 +0100

A research team from the School of Engineering and Materials Science at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), has been awarded Third Place in the Traditional Evolutionary Algorithm Group of the Competition on Expensive Optimization for Mixed-Variable Optimization Problems at the 2026 IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI 2026), held in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

WCCI is one of the world's leading conferences in computational intelligence, bringing together researchers from academia and industry in evolutionary computation, neural networks, and fuzzy systems. The competition challenged participants to develop algorithms for mixed-variable expensive optimisation, where problems involving both continuous and categorical (or discrete) decision variables, where evaluating a candidate solution is computationally or financially expensive.

A representative application is combustion research. Engineers aim to optimise fuel compositions and operating conditions to improve combustion efficiency while reducing emissions. Traditionally, this has relied on repeated physical experiments, which are both costly and time-consuming. Recent advances in artificial intelligence and high-fidelity simulation have made it possible to accurately predict combustion behaviour before conducting real experiments. This creates an opportunity to combine optimisation with simulation: optimisation algorithms can efficiently search for promising fuel mixtures and operating configurations using the simulation model, allowing only the most promising candidates to be validated through physical experiments. By significantly reducing the number of costly experiments required, this approach has the potential to accelerate scientific discovery while lowering research costs.

The team developed a novel optimisation algorithm, ASMLS-MiSACO, which demonstrated strong performance across the competition benchmark suite and was recognised with Third Place. The team consisted of Yinghao Qin, a PhD student in the Centre for Intelligent Transport, and Dr Jun Chen, Reader in Computational Intelligence at Queen Mary.

Reflecting on the achievement, Yinghao Qin said:

"It is a great honour to receive this award at WCCI 2026. The competition provided an excellent opportunity to benchmark our research against leading international teams and highlighted the growing importance of intelligent optimisation methods for solving real-world engineering problems."

The award highlights Queen Mary's continuing research strengths in computational intelligence and optimisation, and demonstrates how advanced optimisation algorithms can contribute to more efficient scientific research and engineering innovation.

EduGrade AI awarded $25,000 in Google Cloud credits through Google for Startups

d.deepshikha@qmul.ac.uk (Deepshikha Deepshikha) — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 23:00:00 +0100

EduGrade AI, an educator-led artificial intelligence platform developed at Queen Mary University of London, has been accepted into the Google for Startups Cloud Program and awarded $25,000 in Google Cloud credits over two years.

The platform helps educators produce rubric-aligned assessment feedback and indicative grades while keeping academic judgement and final decisions firmly with the marker.

Created by Dr Deepshikha of Queen Mary's School of Engineering and Materials Science, EduGrade AI responds to the rising assessment workload in higher education. It drafts personalised feedback against an academic marking rubric, which the educator then reviews, edits and approves before it reaches students.

The credits give the team access to cloud computing, data processing and AI development tools. That infrastructure will support work on the grading and feedback engine, strengthen scalability and open the way to integrations with institutional learning management systems. The programme also brings technical training, online courses, hands-on labs, dedicated startup support and membership of the Google Cloud Startup Community.

Dr Deepshikha said:

Acceptance into the Google for Startups Cloud Program is an important milestone for EduGrade AI. These credits let us strengthen the platform's technical infrastructure and build a solution that scales across disciplines and institutions.

"We are not replacing educator judgement. We are returning time to academics, so they can focus on meaningful engagement with students, curriculum development and high-value teaching. It matters to us that this support helps keep responsible AI and educator control at the core of the platform."

The team will use the Google for Startups support to develop the platform further, strengthen its institutional integration capabilities and prepare for wider adoption across the higher education sector.

Queen Mary returns to IMechE UAS Challenge after eight-year absence

d.carolan@qmul.ac.uk (Declan Carolan) — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 23:00:00 +0100

Queen Mary University of London has returned to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Challenge for the first time in eight years, with its student team competing against 54 teams from 16 countries at BMFA Buckminster.

The Queen Mary Unmanned Aerial Systems (QMUAS) team designed and built a 2.8 m wingspan fixed-wing aircraft for this year's challenge, which required teams to develop an autonomous platform capable of delivering water for a simulated agricultural mission while navigating a geo-fenced waypoint course.

Over the academic year, teams were assessed through a series of technical submissions covering all stages of aircraft development. The aircraft featured a composite carbon-fibre airframe manufactured in-house using 3D-printed moulds, alongside a 3D-printed water tank and electric propulsion system. The design was validated using computational fluid dynamics and mission simulations with X-Plane and ArduPilot software.

At the competition, the aircraft successfully passed safety scrutineering and reached the flight line. However, high winds on the day prevented a successful take-off.

Team Lead Allegra Celesia said the competition was a valuable learning experience and highlighted the potential for this team in the future. Head of Propulsion and incoming Team Lead Imen Ouared described passing scrutineering as a significant achievement and said the team would build on the experience for next year's competition.

Supervised by and supported by academics and technical staff, QMUAS received sponsorship from Airtech, Filamentive, Easy Composites, RS Components and Bitrez. The team is already preparing for the 2027 season, having recently secured additional sponsorship from Leybold.

PhD success for Jiazhe Zhao

s.krause@qmul.ac.uk (Steffi Krause) — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 23:00:00 +0100

Congratulations to Jiazhe Zhao for successfully passing her PhD viva with her thesis entitled "3D Photoelectrochemical Imaging".

Jiazhe completed her work as a member of the Electrochemical Sensors group in the School of Engineering and Materials Science at Queen Mary University of London and was supervised by Steffi Krause and Joe Briscoe.

In her PhD, Jiazhe pioneered the first imaging technique that can be used for mapping electrochemical reactions in a 3D porous structure. Potential applications of this technique include the recording of electrochemical activity in electrocatalysts in three dimensions or functional imaging in 3D tissue culture.

Jiazhe presented her work at five international conferences, including the 248th Meeting of The Electrochemical Society, and one national one. She received the Best Oral Presentation Award at the 39th Topical Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry.

She is currently preparing a publication to disseminate her novel imaging platform to the wider scientific community.

Dr Rattapong Numard Successfully Completes His PhD

j.busfield@qmul.ac.uk (James Busfield) — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 23:00:00 +0100

Congratulations to Dr Rattapong Numard who passed his PhD defence on the 28th July 2026 for a thesis entitled, “The Effects of Carbon Black Surface Activity on the Filler Reinforcement of Natural Rubber.” Rattapong completed his PhD journey as a member of James Busfield’s Soft Matter Group in SEMS at QMUL. He was financially supported throughout his studies by a Scholarship from the Royal Thai Government.

Rattapong’s examiners were Prof Paul Hogg (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Dr Guogong Ren (University of Hertfordshire). The viva was completed in just 2 hours with both examiners enjoying Rattapong’s discussion of the rubber-filler interface and the role it plays on the key tyre performance indicators that are related to enhanced grip, reduced wear and lower fuel consumption.

Rattapong is the seventh student from James’ group to complete his PhD in the last 18 months. He will return to Thailand this weekend as he has already started an academic position as a lecturer in the Faculty of Science and Technology at Songkhla Rajabhat University. He will be busy as he has classes starting next Monday.

From student projects to the International Stage: Aerospace teams shine at ICMAE 2026

e.avital@qmul.ac.uk (Eldad Avital) — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 23:00:00 +0100

Two teams of the School’s MEng and BEng Aerospace Engineering students presented their research at the 17th IEEE International Conference on Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (ICMAE 2026), hosted at Queen Mary University of London from 15th –18th July.

MEng students Emmanuel Airiofolo, Hardit Saini, Anuhya Kotakadi and Dahir Moallim presented a low-cost approach to measuring wing vibrations using LiDAR and a reduced number of accelerometers. They were supervised by Dr Fariborz Motallebi and Dr Eldad Avital. BEng and MEng students Denis Kuropatkin, Sam Al-Jaboby, Jigarjot Natt and Arrin Fernandes presented research on Operational Modal Analysis for future active flutter suppression, with the PhD student Raima Rahman also contributing as a co-author. They were supervised by Dr Ranjan Vepa and Dr Eldad Avital. Both projects were supported by Airbus Defence and Space.

Their achievement demonstrates how Engineering students can transform university projects into industry-supported research and present their findings on an international stage, at a conference where the paper acceptance rate was below 60%. It also reflects the exciting opportunities available at Queen Mary for students to work with academic and industrial experts on real aerospace engineering challenges. These types of projects and opportunities will continue to be offered to our students in the coming years.

Queen Mary hosts global showcase of bone and musculoskeletal research

s.verbruggen@qmul.ac.uk (Stefaan Verbruggen) — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 23:00:00 +0100

Queen Mary University of London has reinforced its position as a leading international centre for musculoskeletal research by successfully hosting two major scientific conferences back-to-back on its Mile End campus this July.

The XVIIth Congress of the International Society of Bone Morphometry (ISBM 2026) from 4th - 7th July was followed immediately by the Bone Research Society (BRS) Annual Meeting 2026 from 8th - 10th July. Dr Stefaan Verbruggen, and his team at the Verbruggen Lab, chaired both events, bringing together leading researchers, clinicians, engineers, imaging specialists, healthcare professionals, industry partners and early-career investigators from around the world to London for an exceptional week of scientific discovery, collaboration and innovation.

The International Society of Bone Morphometry Congress showcased the latest advances in quantitative skeletal imaging, bone biology and musculoskeletal research. Delegates explored topics ranging from osteocyte biology and mechanosensing to spatial omics, artificial intelligence, computational imaging and bone regeneration. The congress highlighted emerging technologies that are transforming our ability to understand skeletal tissues across multiple scales, while providing valuable opportunities for training, networking and collaboration across disciplines.

Immediately following ISBM 2026, Queen Mary welcomed the Bone Research Society Annual Meeting back to London for the first time in almost two decades. The three-day conference featured internationally recognised speakers, scientific symposia, workshops, poster presentations and networking events spanning fundamental, translational and clinical research. Key themes included osteoporosis and fracture prevention, rare bone diseases, osteoarthritis, bone cancer, advanced imaging, spatial multi-omics, mechanobiology, regenerative medicine, biomaterials and novel in vitro models.

The two meetings reflected both the breadth and depth of Queen Mary's research strengths. Delegates had the opportunity to visit the Queen Mary NanoVision Centre and the Centre for Predictive In Vitro Models, showcasing cutting-edge facilities that are helping to drive advances in imaging, organ-on-a-chip technologies, tissue engineering and computational analysis. These facilities exemplify the interdisciplinary approach that underpins much of Queen Mary's research activity and its commitment to developing innovative approaches to understanding and treating musculoskeletal disease.

As musculoskeletal diseases continue to affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide, the discoveries, discussions and collaborations established during these conferences will help shape future advances in prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Queen Mary is proud to have provided the venue where many of those conversations began, further strengthening its reputation as a global leader in biomedical engineering, skeletal biology and musculoskeletal research.

Three PhD students join the role of honour in James Busfield’s Soft Matter Group

j.busfield@qmul.ac.uk (James Busfield) — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 23:00:00 +0100

At the first SEMS graduation ceremony on the 27th July 2026, three PhD students graduated from James Busfield’s Soft Matter Group at QMUL. Dr Kirsty Rutherford completed her PhD on the modelling of the viscoelastic behaviour of reinforcing fillers and Dr Aaron Duncan completed his PhD on modelling of the ageing of rubber. Both were funded by EPSRC iCASE award in collaboration with SLB and had Dr Dimitrios Papageorgiou as their second supervisor. Dr Eathan Plaschka worked on modelling the wear processes in tyre tread compounds. His PhD was funded by an F1 team, who now employ him as a tyre engineer.

During the graduation, Prof Keizo Akutagawa, who supported all three projects, was with James on the stage. James Busfield reflected that it was great that all three were able to graduate together. The three of them have done brilliantly producing 7 journal papers and 25 conference presentations in total between them all based on their different PhD studies.

Dr Mouna Chetehouna presents a Queen Mary-led Engineering Education Model at ECE2026

m.c.chetehouna@qmul.ac.uk (Mouna Chetehouna) — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 23:00:00 +0100

Dr Mouna Chetehouna from the School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS) presented a Queen Mary-led education and training model at the 14th European Conference on Education (ECE2026), organised by The International Academic Forum (IAFOR).

The presentation, titled “An Integrated Education and Training Model for Safe Offshore Aquaculture Engineering”, was delivered within the conference stream Professional Training, Development & Concerns in Education. Led by Queen Mary University of London, the work brings together collaborators from the National Technical University of Athens, IIT Madras and Wenzhou Vocational College of Science and Technology, alongside industry and training partners working across offshore aquaculture, maritime systems, materials, seafood production and vocational training.

The presentation focused on a central challenge in engineering education, which is how research activity, student learning, industry expertise and frontline workforce training can be connected in ways that are educationally meaningful and practically useful. This challenge is particularly significant in offshore aquaculture, a sector with growing importance for food security and sustainable seafood production, but also one that operates in demanding marine environments where safety, infrastructure reliability, energy systems, fish welfare and environmental protection are closely linked.

At the centre of the work is the continued evolution of Authentic, Industry-Driven Learning (AIDL), an educational framework developed within SEMS by Dr Mouna Chetehouna and Dr Eldad Avital. AIDL reframes engineering student projects as authentic, industry-linked and dissemination-oriented learning experiences. In its earlier implementation, the framework embedded industrial mentorship, transnational collaboration and public research dissemination into student project work, while retaining academic rigour through established assessment structures including reports, presentations and viva.

The offshore aquaculture project represents the next stage in the development of this framework. AIDL is being extended from a student-centred project model into a five-year international research, learning and training programme. Through this expansion, the AIDL’s sphere of influence now reaches across academic partners in Greece and India, industry specialists contributing operational knowledge and technical expertise, and frontline training partners in China.

This wider application creates a layered model of participation and knowledge exchange. Students enter the project at multiple levels, from undergraduate summer research and MEng/MSc project work through to doctoral and postdoctoral research. Their work is connected to live engineering challenges, including modelling, simulation, hydrodynamics, materials research, wave-energy integration and deployment studies. Industry partners contribute operational data, specialist training, case-based learning and professional validation, while frontline partners support fishermen, technicians and aquaculture personnel through practical safety and sustainable-operations training.

Within SEMS and through CREME, the work demonstrates how educational scholarship can generate impact beyond modules and cohorts. By extending AIDL into an international offshore aquaculture context, the project connects authentic student learning with research translation, industry co-education, workforce development and sustainable engineering practice. It also contributes to QMUL’s established and growing reputation for engineering education that is globally engaged, evidence-informed and grounded in real-world challenges.

The presentation positioned AIDL as a transferable framework for research-integrated engineering education. Its broader contribution lies in showing how universities can design learning systems in which students engage with live engineering problems, industry partners act as co-educators, end users inform training needs, and educational impact is evaluated beyond academic grades. In doing so, the work contributes to the evolution of STEM education while extending QMUL’s educational influence across international academic, industry and training communities.

New Elsevier book showcases biomimetics research in aviation and marine engineering

e.avital@qmul.ac.uk (Eldad Avital) — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 23:00:00 +0100

A new Elsevier book, Biomimetics for Aviation and Marine Applications, has been published, bringing together leading researchers from around the world to explore how nature-inspired engineering can advance aviation and marine technologies.

The volume was edited by Dr Mahadi H. Masud (Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology), Dr Eldad Avital (Queen Mary University of London) and Prof Peter Dabnichki (RMIT University).

The book provides a comprehensive overview of biomimetic principles and their application to aviation and marine engineering, covering topics including bio-inspired aerodynamics and hydrodynamics, underwater and aerial vehicles, fluid-structure interaction, computational modelling, wind energy, robotics and advanced engineering design. It highlights how lessons from nature can inspire more efficient, sustainable and innovative engineering solutions.

The editors acknowledge the outstanding contributions of the chapter authors. Dr Avital expresses his gratitude to Dr Masud for leading the project, Prof Dabnichki for his expertise and support throughout the editorial process, and Prof Aloysius F. Hepp, Series Editor, for his guidance and encouragement in bringing the volume to publication.

The book further strengthens the international standing of the School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS) by showcasing its leadership in aerospace and marine engineering research and education, and its commitment to global academic collaboration. It also reflects SEMS' growing contribution to developing innovative engineering solutions that bridge fundamental science and practical applications.

Dr Haixue Yan awarded fellowship of the Institute of Physics

h.x.yan@qmul.ac.uk (Haixue Yan) — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 23:00:00 +0100

Dr Haixue Yan has been elected a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP), one of the highest professional honours awarded by the Institute.

The Fellowship recognises Dr Yan's sustained and internationally recognised contributions to condensed matter physics, particularly his pioneering research on the physics of dielectric and ferroelectric materials. His research has helped establish new scientific principles governing dielectric and ferroelectric materials, advancing the fundamental understanding of structure–property relationships in functional materials. These discoveries have contributed to the development of next-generation technologies for energy-efficient electronics, electrocaloric cooling, sensors, actuators and other advanced functional devices.

Election to this prestigious Fellowship reflects not only Dr Yan's outstanding research achievements but also his leadership within the international physics community through collaborative research, the supervision and mentoring of early-career researchers, editorial service, and his broader contributions to advancing the discipline.

On receiving the Fellowship, Dr Yan said:

"I am deeply honoured to be elected a Fellow of the Institute of Physics. This recognition reflects the collective efforts of my students, postdoctoral researchers, collaborators and colleagues over many years. I look forward to continuing our research into functional materials and exploring new scientific discoveries that address global challenges in sustainable energy and advanced electronics."

Professors Karin Hing and Keizo Akutagawa recognised with prestigious awards from I0M3

a.wilkes@qmul.ac.uk (Ayden Wilkes) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 23:00:00 +0100

The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (I0M3) has recognised two Queen Mary academics from the School of Engineering and Materials Science in their 2026 awards.

Prof Karin Hing has been awarded the Chapman Medal for distinguished research in the field of biomedical materials.

The award is named after Prof Dennis Chapman FRS, a scientist, whose research on phosphorylcholine led to his founding of Biocompatibles International plc. The award recognises research which has seen significant benefits for patients or created opportunities in the industry.

Prof Hing's work focusses on the development of pioneering biomaterials and healthcare therapies for tissue regeneration. Her work on tissue regeneration in bone was commemorated by Royal Mail on a stamp in 2019. She was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering's Silver Medal in 2011 and has since been awarded the Kroll Medal by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, and the Biocompatibles Prize by the UK Society for Biomaterials, both in 2013.

Prof Keizo Akutagawa has been awarded the Hancock Medal for outstanding service to the rubber industry.

The Hancock Medal commemorates Thomas Roger Hancock, a UK scientist in the field of mastication, mixing and sulphur vulcanization who patented sulphur vulcanisation in 1843, before Charles Goodyear.

Prof Akutagawa first joined Queen Mary in 1992 as a PhD student funded by Bridgestone, Japan. He studied alongside now Deputy Head of School Professor James Busfield in the Soft Matter Group, and his resulting research led to many innovations that were exploited by Bridgestone after Keizo had graduated and returned to Japan in 1995. He became a visiting professor in 2020 and was made an honorary fellow of Queen Mary in July 2025.

Both Professors will be presented with the awards at the formal ceremony in December.