Information on the Principal Investigators for the UK Catalysis Hub are detailed below.
Principal Investigator – Professor Charlotte K. Williams OBE FRS; charlotte.williams@chem.ox.ac.uk
Charlotte K. Williams is Director of the UK Catalysis Hub and a professor of Inorganic Chemistry. She is an EPSRC Established Career Research Fellow and a Co-Director of the centre for doctoral training in Inorganic Chemistry for Future Manufacturing. She heads-up a research team investigating polymerization catalysis with a particular focus on carbon dioxide utilization and transformation into products. Her research includes investigations into carbon dioxide copolymerization, switchable polymerization catalysis, stereoselective lactide polymerization and colloidal nanocatalysts for carbon dioxide hydrogenation. Her work has been recently recognised by election as a fellow of the Royal Society (2021), the Royal Society of Chemistry Tilden Medal (2021), an OBE for Services to Chemistry (2020), Macro Group UK Medal (2019), DeChema Otto Roelen Catalysis Medal (2018), The UK Catalysis Hub Sir John Meurig Thomas Medal (2017) and the Royal Society of Chemistry Corday Morgan Medal (2016).
Principal Investigator – Professor and EPSRC Early Career Fellow – Andrew M. Beale;
andrew.beale@ucl.ac.uk
Andy Beale is a professor at UCL and EPSRC Early Career Fellow based at RCaH and UCL Chemistry. His work focuses on establishing structure-function relationships in catalytic solids as a function of both time and space using in situ and operando spectroscopic and scattering methods. Specific areas of interest include the development of novel imaging techniques for the study of single catalyst bodies under real reaction conditions, determining the nature of the active site and reaction mechanism in catalysts for NOx abatement, unravelling the self-assembly mechanism of the microporous materials and the characterisation of catalytically active supported nanoparticles. In 2013, he and a colleague successfully spun out a company (Finden Ltd).
Principal Investigator – Professor Richard Catlow; catlowr@cardiff.ac.uk
Prof. C.R.A. Catlow leads the Optimising predicting and designing new catalysts theme. He has long standing experience in the development and applications of both experimental and computer modelling techniques in catalysis and molecular sciences. He holds approximately £2.5M of current EPSRC funding and has extensive experience in the field of HPC simulation techniques. He has been PI of the EPSRC funded Materials Chemistry HPC consortium for 15 years and has wide experience in managing large flexible consortium grants including a portfolio partnership grant (2005-2010), a High Performance Computing Consortium grant (2008-2013), and is currently the PI of the Centre for Catalytic Science (2011-2016).
UK Catalysis Hub Director – Professor Matthew Davidson; m.g.davidson@bath.ac.uk
Matthew Davidson leads the Catalysis for the Circular Economy and Sustainable Manufacturing theme. He is Whorrod Professor of Sustainable Chemical Technologies and Director of the Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies at the University of Bath. His research interests are in the application of catalysis to the sustainable manufacture of fuels, materials and chemicals. Following a PhD and Research Fellowship at Cambridge, he held lectureships in Cambridge and Durham before being appointed to a Chair at the University of Bath. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a recipient of the Harrison Memorial Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a Royal Society Industry Fellowship. He currently serves on the REF 2014 Chemistry Panel and holds over £13M of funding from research councils and industry.
Principal Investigator – Amanda Jarvis;
Amanda Jarvis performed her undergraduate studies at the University of St Andrews (Scotland), before moving to the University of York to conduct her PhD studies. Following postdoctoral positions at the ICSN (Gif-sur-Yvette, France) and in St Andrews, she started her independent career in the School of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh in 2017 supported by a Christina Miller fellowship. In 2019, she was subsequently awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and in 2022 was promoted to Senior Lecturer. Her research focuses on the development of artificial enzymes as catalysts to help improve the overall sustainability of chemical synthesis. She is a member of the RSC Applied Catalysis Group committee and chairs the UK Catalysis Hub ECR committee.
Principal Investigator – Professor Christopher Hardacre; c.hardacre@manchester.ac.uk
Christopher Hardacre leads the Catalysis at the Water and Energy Nexus theme. Chris is the Vice Dean and Head of School of Natural Sciences at University of Manchester. His research group focuses on ionic liquids and catalysis, with relevant projects in biomass processing, energy, fine chemical synthesis, plasma catalysis for emission control and clean hydrogen production. Much of the work has centred around developing new catalytic processes as well as investigating the structure-activity/selectivity relationships using in-situ spectroscopic and structural methods. He has published 450+ papers (H-index 71) and 11 patents. His work is funded by EPSRC, EC, TSB, RS, industry and local government, attracting >£15m since 2003. He was part of the Queen’s University Ionic Liquid Laboratory which attained the Queen’s Award for Further and Higher Education (2006). Awarded the RSC Teamwork in Innovation (2005), the USA 2008 R&D 100 award and the IChemE Andrew Medal for Catalysis (2013). He is a co-PI and Director of UK Catalysis Hub and an elected Member of the Royal Irish Academy.
Principal Investigator – Professor Graham Hutchings; hutch@cardiff.ac.uk
Regius Professor Graham J. Hutchings FRS leads the Core theme and is a leading expert in heterogeneous catalysis, known for developing gold and mixed-metal nanoparticle catalysts. He has spent nine years in industry in the UK (ICI) and South Africa (AECI) and has held Chairs of Chemistry at the Universities of Witwatersrand, Liverpool and Cardiff. He has over 850 papers and patents. His many international awards include the Heinz Heinemann Award of the International Catalysis Society (2012), Davy Medal of the Royal Society (2013), the Menelaus Medal of the LSW (2017) and the RSC Faraday Lectureship and Medal (2018). In 2009 he was elected FRS, and in 2010 to the Academia Europaea and as a Founding Fellow of LSW.
Principal Investigator – Professor Adrian Mulholland;
adrian.mulholland@bristol.ac.uk
Adrian Mulholland is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Bristol where he was Director of Research for Chemistry 2019-22. His research focuses on investigating enzyme catalysis, biomolecular dynamics and function, using computational molecular simulation. He develops and applies simulation methods to antimicrobial resistance, biocatalysis, enzyme design and evolution, using high performance computing. He has published over 250 papers. He has been awarded fellowships by EPSRC and the Wellcome Trust, and holds an ERC Advanced Grant (2021-26). His research is supported by current grants from BBSRC, EPSRC, ERC, MRC and industry. He was awarded the 2020 John Meurig Thomas Medal. He is a Member of the EPSRC Science, Technology and Engineering Board. He has served as Chair of the Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society; CCP-BioSim (the UK Collaborative Computational Project on Biomolecular Simulation); the 2016 Computational Chemistry Gordon Research Conference; HECBioSim (UK High End Computing Consortium for Biomolecular Simulation); the UK CCP Steering Panel; Steering Group, UK Catalysis Hub; and the BBSRC/MRC Large Scale Computing Task Force (2020-23).
Project Manager – Josie Goodall;
josie.goodall@rc-harwell.ac.uk
Josie started her career in science by studying Materials science, Economics and Management (MEM) at Oxford University (2000-2004). After coming top of her year and achieving a first class degree and Masters in MEM, her science career then took a brief hiatus in during year teaching English in South Korea. On her Return to the UK she started a PhD in Materials Chemistry at Queen Mary University of London (2006) investigating the properties of nano–ceramic materials for Sunscreens and photocatalytic Materials. After completing Her PhD she went on to investigate the synthesis of nano-ceramics as phosphor materials and the synthesis on bio-inspired nano-metal sulphide materials for the electro-catalytic reduction of CO2 at UCL. She has now taken on the Role of Project Manager for the UK catalysis Hub.
Experimental BAG Officer – Dr Martin Wilding; wildingm2@cardiff.ac.uk
Martin received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh where he studied mineral inclusions in natural diamond. Subsequently he focussed on the thermodynamics and structure of amorphous materials and liquids working in laboratories in both Germany and the USA before relocating in the UK. Martin has worked extensively with colleagues at the Advanced Photon Source using high energy X-rays to determine the structure of refractory oxide liquids and molten salts. He has also worked at both pulsed and reactor neutron sources, studying liquids and amorphous materials under extreme conditions. Martin now works as Experimental Officer for the UK Catalysis Hub and has taken over the management of the Hub’s BAG (Block Allocation Grant) beamtimes at the Diamond Light Source.
Office Manager – Corinne Anyika;
corinne.anyika@rc-harwell.ac.uk
Corinne joined the department in October 2016 and is a member of the professional services team providing support to members of the UK Catalysis Hub.
Research Team at Harwell
Alongside the wide involvement of partner institutions is a team of scientists based fully or partially at RCaH. Their role is to drive the progression of the Centre to become a leading facility nationally, and internationally, in the field of catalytic science. A brief description of the team is detailed below.
42 publications and 3 patents.
Resident Professor – Mike Bowker;
bowkerm@cf.ac.uk
Professor M. Bowker (Cardiff) works in the fields of surface science, nanoscience and catalysis and has approximately 250 publications, with an h-index of 45. He has worked in both industry (ICI) and academia. He leads the Heterogeneous Catalysis and Surface Science group in Cardiff, consisting of nine academic members of staff and 80 researchers. He founded the Wolfson Nanoscience Laboratory at Cardiff in 2006 and is Deputy Director of the recently established Cardiff Catalysis Institute. His research focuses on adsorption and surface reactivity, ranging from, for example, selective oxidation catalysis, to photocatalysis to studies of adsorption and structure of well-defined surfaces. He has been involved with the Centre at RCAH since March 2011 and spends a significant amount of his time here.
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Facilities Members
ISIS – Dr Stewart Parker; stewart.parker@stfc.ac.uk
Diamond Light Source – Professor Andy Dent; andy.dent@diamond.ac.uk