News

August 2022

Funding for project "Novel plasma reforming technology for tars reduction in BECCS" awarded by UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy 4 August 2022 Queen Mary researchers in collaboration with the Chemical Engineering at University College London have won funding for a proof of concept project with the Hydrogen BECCS Innovation Programme, part of the Government’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP), which aims to provide funding to support innovation in hydrogen BECCS (… [more]

July 2022

Dr Timothy Hopkins receives Versus Arthritis Foundation Fellowship 29 July 2022 Dr Timothy Hopkins has been awarded a £310,000 Foundation Fellowship by Versus Arthritis to develop a human ‘joint-on-a-chip’. The aim of the fellowship is to improve understanding of how interactions between knee joint tissues contribute to the development of osteoarthritis (OA), and to the efficacy of treatments. OA … [more]

Congratulations to Pavel Victoria Tafoya for Passing his PhD Viva! 20 July 2022 Many congratulations to Pavel for passing his PhD viva on the 20th July 2022 with minor corrections with Dr Cristina Giordano (QMUL, SPCS) and Prof Chris Howard (UCL). Pavel was supervised by Dr Ana Jorge Sobrido and the recipient of a CONACYT studentship from the Mexican government. During the last months, … [more]

Pamela Swiatlowska shortlisted for Marshall Award and wins travel award for work on vascular smooth muscle cell mechanosensing 20 July 2022 Pamela Swiatlowska won a travel award to give a talk on her work on vascular smooth muscle cell mechanosensing at the 8th meeting of the invadosome consortium, 4-7 October in Sete, France. She will be also presenting her work at the Annual Meeting of the British Society of&… [more]

Congratulations to Linh Tran Thi Ngoc for Passing her PhD Viva 12 July 2022 Many congratulations to Linh on passing her PhD viva on the 12th July 2022 with minor corrections. Linh's PhD thesis studied the synthesis of nickel and iron layered double hydroxides supported on electrospun lignin-derived carbon fibres and their application as oxygen bifunctional electrocatalysts under the supervision of Dr … [more]

UK Redox Flow Battery Network Annual Meeting Hosted at Queen Mary University of London 11 July 2022 The 6th Annual Meeting of the UK Redox Flow Battery Network  (UKRFBN) took place on the 11th July 2022. This year the event was held at Queen Mary University of London and hosted by Ana Jorge Sobrido, who is an active member of the UKRFBN Committee. Around 80 people registered … [more]

SEMS' Polymers & Composites Group success at 20th European Conference on Composite Materials in Lausanne, Switzerland 8 July 2022 In the last week of June, the Polymers & Composites Group had a highly successful week presenting at the 20th European Conference on Composite Materials (ECCM20) in the stunningly beautiful city of Lausanne.  Seven members made their way to Switzerland and were all eager to share the fantastic work … [more]

Ana Jorge Sobrido Participates in EPSRC-supported Workshop on the Future of Electrochemistry in the UK 7 July 2022 Organised by Prof Dryfe (University of Manchester), Prof Katherine Holt (University College London), Dr Mark Symes (University of Glasgow) and Dr Upul Wijayantha (Loughborough University), this stimulating event gathered around 40 academics from UK institutions working on topics with a significant electrochemistry component to debate current challenges of the area and … [more]

Prof Martin Knight elected as the first Chair of the UK BioMedical Engineering Council 6 July 2022 Prof Martin Knight from the School of Engineering and Materials Science at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) has been elected as the first Chair of the UK BioMedEng Council.  The Association of Biomedical Engineers, Medical Engineers and Bioengineers (BioMedEng Association) represents a broad field of multidisciplinary research … [more]

June 2022

Anureet Kaur wins the IRCO Prize at IRC2021 30 June 2022 The postponed International Rubber Conference 2021 has just completed in Germany. In the closing ceremony, Anureet Kaur from James Busfield’s Soft Matter Group took home the IRCO Best Student Presentation Award for her paper on "Development of Self-Healable and Recyclable Elastomers." The judging was done using online … [more]

Congratulations to Szymon Doszczeczko for passing his PhD viva 28 June 2022 Many congratulations to Szymon on passing his PhD viva on the 28th June 2022 with minor corrections. Szymon's PhD thesis studied the synthesis of cobalt-based materials and their application as oxygen bifunctional electrocatalysts. He will continue in Ana Sobrido's Group as a postdoc working on 3D-printed microstructured electrodes … [more]

International Women in Engineering Day 23 June 2022 Celebrating women engineers and helping each other see our lives For years we have been celebrating the achievements of our engineers but today we wanted to do something different. We wanted to help others see who we are, help us reflect on our past and see our future self. Mia … [more]

Two Young Investigator Awards in Prenatal Diagnosis 21 June 2022 Malcolm Ferguson-Smith Young Investigator Award Dr David Barrett presented our award winning paper "potential sealing and repair of human fetal membrane defects after trauma with peptide amphiphiles and Cx43 antisense" at the 26th International Conference on Prenatal Diagnosis and Therapy in Montreal, Canada which took place between 19 and 23 … [more]

Congratulations to Gamalendira Shivapatham for passing his PhD viva! 17 June 2022 Gamal successfully completed his PhD, developing and testing new ultrasound-based imaging tools to explore tendon health and disease in the Achilles tendon. Gamal developed a specialised technique known as slip-elastography for exploring functional tendon dynamics. He subsequently tested his methods in a cohort of participants, highlighting the importance of … [more]

Eduardo Yanes Nunez successfully completes his PhD in the Soft Matter Group 16 June 2022 Eduardo Yanes Nunez has become the latest member of James Busfield's Soft Matter Group to pass their PhD exam. Eduardo completed his PhD viva on the 16th June defending a thesis entitled, "Frictional Behaviour of Elastomer Seals." This was the fourth industrially funded PhD project sponsored by … [more]

Queen Mary researchers present their work on high-speed flow and noise modelling at the leading aeroacoustics conference in Europe 16 June 2022 Vasily Gryazev and Hussain Abid have presented several papers featuring the latest work of the group in application to aeroacoustics of high-speed jets and aerofoils at the 28th AIAA/CEAS Aeroacoustics Conference in Southampton. The presented work includes the modelling of high speed subsonic and supersonic … [more]

Queen Mary Science and Engineering researchers awarded UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships to tackle heart irregular heart rhythms and explore turbulence in space plasma 15 June 2022 Dr Caroline Roney and Dr Christopher Chen are among 84 promising leaders awarded fellowships totalling £98 million.  The fellowships support the most promising science and research leaders to tackle major global issues and to commercialise their innovations in the UK. Professor Wen Wang, Queen Mary's … [more]

Picture an Engineer 13 June 2022 When you see an engineer, what does the picture mean to you?  International photographer Michael Cockerham and the Ideas Foundation created a digital storytelling workshop at Queen Mary's Festival of Communities to help engineers see each other's worlds.  The creative & culture teams built … [more]

Inspiring the next generation of organ-chip scientists and bioengineers at the QMUL Festival of Communities 11 June 2022 A fantastic day at Queen Mary's Festival of Communities talking about our organs-on-chips research. There was lots of interesting conversations and interactions with local people of all ages. Our excellent team of demonstrators showed people real organ-chip models and discussed their usage in the development of new medicines. Visitors, … [more]

Queen Mary's Hyperlink group wins the Low Power Award for the Electronic System and awarded second place for Propulsion System in an international student competition hosted by the University of Waterloo, Canada 9 June 2022 Hyperlink is a London student group that is mostly based at the School of Engineering and Materials of Science, QMUL (https://www.hyperlinklondon.com/). The QMUL students - Katarzyna Lichy, Marcin Bielicki, Michal Makowka and Matthew Clisby attended the Canadian Hyperloop Competition that  took place  in Waterloo, Ontario 27-29 May 2022 , … [more]

IOM3 awards: Queen Mary scoops up four prizes for engineering and materials science 9 June 2022 The School of Engineering and Materials Science goes from strength to strength as researchers pick up four awards and medals from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) The IOM3 presents a range of awards, medals and prizes in recognition of personal achievement, for published work and for contributions … [more]

Congratulations to Valeriya Kudryavtseva on successfully passing her PhD Viva 7 June 2022 Valeriya has successfully completed her PhD on "Elaboration of biodegradable printed microcapsules  and microchambers: versatile microencapsulation approach for drug delivery applications" In her work she proposed a novel way to make capsules what allows to encapsulate various substances regardless their molecular weight and solubility, including encapsulation … [more]

Congratulations to the 2022 Intercalated Graduates 1 June 2022 Celebrating seven years of the Intercalated Research Symposium The Intercalated Symposium is an exciting scientific forum for medical students to present collaborative multi-disciplinary research in science, engineering and medicine. Around 60 participants joined the 2 sessions with presentations in machine learning, computational medicine, medical robotics, healthcare, nanotechnology, biomaterials and regenerative … [more]

Queen Mary partners with the Faraday Institution to power up redox flow batteries   1 June 2022 Queen Mary’s Dr Ana Jorge Sobrido will lead a project to overcome engineering issues that are currently preventing the wide-spread adoption of redox flow batteries (RFBs).    RFBs are emerging as a crucial technology for the transition to renewable energy, since their large capacity can help to … [more]

May 2022

Congratulations to Megan McFie who has passed her PhD identifying drugs that regulate primary cilia in cartilage cells 24 May 2022 Megan has successfully completed her PhD which examined the effect of pharmaceutical compounds on primary cilia - solitary hair-like structures found on most cell type. Her PhD was part of a multidisciplinary collaboration between Prof Martin Knight and Dr Cleo Bishop. Primary cilia are known to coordinate a variety of … [more]

Ana Sobrido selected to participate in the workshop "Working with Creative Industries" 13 May 2022 Ana was among the selected candidates to participate in the workshop organised by Plus Funds Programme and the University of Bristol (Dr Victoria Bates) on Working with Creative Industries. The workshop runs from May 2022 to June 2023, with a variety of activities directed to understand how to develop more impactful … [more]

SEMS Academics Perform Exceptionally in REF 2021 12 May 2022 The scores have been announced for REF2021. The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is a 7 year cycle used to measure research and determine funding in UK universities. The result for SEMS is excellent as not only have we come seventh overall in Engineering amongst all 89 universities who were being assessed in … [more]

Professor Andrew Livingston elected a Fellow of the Royal Society 10 May 2022 The Royal Society has elected Professor Livingston, Queen Mary’s Vice-Principal (Research and Innovation) and Professor of Chemical Engineering, as a new Fellow. The election is in recognition of Professor Livingston’s achievements in chemical engineering. During his distinguished career, he has worked to create new technology to … [more]

Researchers at QMUL discuss the future of organ-on-a-chip models in new 'What is Biotechnology' article 6 May 2022 Prof Knight was interviewed, along with Prof Donald Ingber from the Weiss Institute and other leading figures working in the organ-on-a-chip technology, for a major new review article pubishished in 'What is biotechnology'. As the review explains, organs-on-a-chip are small devices designed to replicate key aspects of the physiological … [more]

April 2022

Congratulations to Muchun Zhong on Passing Her PhD Viva 29 April 2022 Congratulations to Muchun Zhong passed her PhD viva on Friday 29 April 2022. Muchun’s thesis was titled "Investigation of silicon (on sapphire) with monolayers in LAPS and photoelectrochemical sensors". She was supervised by Steffi Krause and Michael Watkinson. Muchun presented her work at the International Symposium on … [more]

5th Russell Binions Memorial PhD Research Symposium held at SEMS 27 April 2022 The 5th Russell Binions Memorial PhD Research Symposium was held in-person at Queen Mary University of London on 27th April 2022. Over 30 PhD students, in their 2nd and 3rd years, presented their research, to staff and students, in fields ranging from Biomedical, Materials to Mechanical and Robotics Engineering. We had a … [more]

Travis Hohenberger successfully completes his PhD in the Soft Matter Group 26 April 2022 Travis Hohenberger has become the latest member of James Busfield's Research Group to pass their PhD exam. Travis completed his PhD viva on the 26th April defending a thesis entitled, "Prediction of Leakage in Elastomeric Seals for High Pressure Applications." This was the third industrially funded project … [more]

New paper on vascular smooth muscle cell pressure and stiffness sensing is published in Science Advances journal 15 April 2022 Our paper on vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) pressure and stiffness sensing is out in Science Advances. Congratulations to everyone involved and especially Pamela Swiatlowska and Brian Sit who are shared first authors. Our new findings show how the progression of atherosclerosis is affected by … [more]

MEng Group Project Presentation prize awarded at ILF April 2022 6 April 2022 Our MEng students presented their Research & Design Team Projects at the Industrial Liaison Forum on 6th April 2022. Our MEng students conduct team projects in their 4th year in groups of about 5 students. Currently towards the end of their projects, they were able to present a mix of prototypes, samples … [more]

MSc Extended Research Project poster prize winners at ILF April 2022 6 April 2022 Our MSc students presented their Extended Research Projects at the Industrial Liaison Forum on 6th April 2022. Our MSc projects run from semester 1 through to August, so they are currently only about half-way through their projects. Nonetheless, they were able to give an excellent account of their work so far and … [more]

BEng Research Project poster prize winners at ILF April 2022 6 April 2022 Selected 3rd year BEng students presented posters on their research projects at the Industrial Liaison on 6th April 2022. We had over 50 external visitors at the event from industry as well as Alumni. The posters were displayed at the Final Year Student Project Showcase in the morning, where a fantastic selection … [more]

SEMS Industrial Liaison Forum April 2022 6 April 2022 Our bi-annual Industrial Liaison Forum was held in-person at Queen Mary University of London on 6th April 2022. We received over 50 external visitors from industry as well as Alumni. The day started with our final year student project showcase, where a fantastic selection of posters were presented by our BEng and … [more]

Ana Jorge Sobrido shortlisted for Education Award 6 April 2022 Congratulations to Ana who was among the nominees for an Education Award in Teaching for Sustainable Development. The award ceremony  was held in the evening of Wednesday 6 April 2022, at Drapers' Hall in The City of London. Although she was not awarded the prize, Ana is  … [more]

March 2022

Dr Eleni Costa defends Doctoral thesis with two clinical experts 29 March 2022 Enormous congratulations to Eleni Costa who defended her Doctoral PhD thesis entitled "repair mechanisms in fetal membrane defects after trauma, strain and fetal surgery". Eleni is working with a multi-disciplinary team of scientists, engineers and clinicans at SEMS (Tina Chowdhury), UCL/UCLH (Prof Anna David), KU Leuven (Prof … [more]

Ana J Sobrido awarded a Royal Society International Exchanges Grant with MIT 28 March 2022 Ana has been awarded a Royal Society International Exchanges Grant with MIT. This grant (March 2022 - March 2024) will start a new collaboration with Prof Brushett from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chemical Engineering Department) and his team. During this collaborative project Prof Brushett and several members of … [more]

Qian Guo passes her PhD viva 25 March 2022 Congratulations to Qian Guo for passing her viva on 25th March 2022 with Prof Steve Dunn and Dr Ludmilla Steier as examiners. Well done Qian! Qian's PhD project focused on the synthesis and study of photoelectrochemical systems based on hematite for photo-assisted water oxidation, supervised by Dr Ana Jorge Sobrido … [more]

SEMS students working on Hyperloop project progress to the next stage of the 2022 European Hyperloop Week 24 March 2022 Hyperlink is a Queen Mary based student team developing a fully operational Hyperloop Pod prototype and researching the business, social and safety aspects of making the novel transportation system a reality. For the past two seasons, Hyperlink has been competing in the European Hyperloop Week conference. In January, the team … [more]

Arnaud Kernin passes his PhD viva 17 March 2022 Congratulations to Arnaud Kernin for passing his PhD viva on 17 Mar 2022 with minor corrections. Arnaud researched on "Kirigami inspired 3D shape programmable multifunctional polymer nanocomposite structures", under the primary superision of Dr. Emiliano Bilotti [more]

February 2022

Vasana M Don passes her PhD Viva 26 February 2022 Congratulations to Vasana M Don for passing her viva on Feb 24th 2022 with minor corrections. Vasana researched supersonic cavity flows using high performance simulations and experimental flow visualisation. She was supervised by Dr Fariborz Motallebi and Dr Eldad Avital. [more]

Connor Gains passes his PhD viva! 25 February 2022 Congratulations to Connor Gains for passing his viva on 25th February, with minor corrections. Connor was supervised by Prof Hazel Screen and Dr Thomas Iskratsch and funded through an EPSRC Industrial studentship working with TRB Chemedica, exploring different bio-lubricants for treating tendon injury. Connor is now working … [more]

Small steps to big changes – SEMS Bronze LEAF Award 17 February 2022 Among the great science that is taking place at the School of Engineering and Materials Science Queen Mary University London, we unfortunately unconsciously contribute to the growing problem of carbon footprint.  In 2014, it was estimated that overall lab plastics constitute ~ 1.8% to the global plastic waste. A new ULT freezer … [more]

25 Years of Service at Queen Mary for Prof Martin Knight 16 February 2022 Professor Knight writes: "I have officially been recognised as providing service to Queen Mary for 25 years! This goes back to my post doc years holding an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship based in the Interdisciplinary Research Centre (IRC) in Biomedical Materials. "It has been a pleasure and a privaledge … [more]

Queen Mary University of London scientist appointed to the EPSRC Early Career Forum in Manufacturing Research 1 February 2022 Dr Han Zhang, Senior Lecturer at the School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London, has been appointed as the member of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Early Career Forum (ECF) in Manufacturing Research in late 2021. The EPSRC ECF in Manufacturing Research aims to … [more]

January 2022

Chemical Engineering Programmes Accredited by IChemE 28 January 2022 Queen Mary University of London's School of Engineering and Materials Science has been granted accreditation for our Chemical Engineering programmes. The accrediting body is the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE). They are the leading professional qualifying body for chemical, biochemical and process engineers. Accreditation is a mark of assurance … [more]

SEMS Staff Receive Many Awards at the Science and Engineering Faculty Awards Ceremony. 27 January 2022 The Science and Engineering Faculty Celebration took place in the Octagon to a large assembled in person gathering and was broadcast simultaneously online to an even larger audience on the 27th January 2022. SEMS had a very large number of the awards with Andrew Spowage winning the Faculty Award for Internationalisation … [more]

Scientists develop Covid-19 testing lab in a backpack 26 January 2022 Researchers have created a simple Covid-19 testing lab that fits into a backpack providing a cheap and effective solution for low income or remote areas. In a new study, published in PLOS ONE and the Evening Standard, scientists from Queen Mary University of London show that their lab-in-a-backpack approach … [more]

450 SEMS Alumni Graduate at Tobacco Dock 18 January 2022 It was with great relief that Queen Mary University of London was able to restart in person graduation ceremonies for the first time in more than two years at Tobacco Dock in Wapping. The first celebration for the School of Engineering and Materials Science (SEMS) students was on … [more]

Eminent Materials Scientist Joins Queen Mary 10 January 2022 Professor Sir Harshad "Harry" Kumar Dharamshi Hansraj Bhadeshia, the Indian-British metals expert is joining Queen Mary University of London. Sir Harry will be entering the School of Engineering and Materials Science, where he will undertake research and continue to further the School’s profile and its work … [more]