Materials Annual Report - Friends of Imperial College

Robert L Coble Award for Dr Julian R
Jones
Dr Julian R Jones (above right) was awarded the
2010 Robert L Coble Award for Young Scholars
by The American Ceramics Society. The award
recognizes an outstanding scientist (under the age
of 35) who is conducting research in academia,
in industry or at a government-funded laboratory.
This award honours the late Professor Coble,
whose lifelong mission was to enhance the
achievement and advancement of young ceramic
scientists. Julian received the award at the 112th
Annual Meeting of The American Ceramics Society
in Houston, Texas in October 2010. In addition,
Julian was appointed Visiting Professor at the
Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan for the
period 2010–14.
Landmark paper by
Professor Mike W
Finnis
A special issue of
Philosophical Magazine
(edited by Graeme
Ackland, Vasek Vitek and Adrian Sutton) was
published to mark a landmark publication in 1984
by Professor Mike W Finnis (above, right) and
Professor Jim Sinclair. The paper dramatically
changed the world of simulating transition metals
at the atomic scale – (Interatomic potentials of
the kind they derived are now known as Finnis-
Sinclair potentials). Mike and Jim were presented
with leather-bound copies of the special issue by
Paul Bristowe, Associate Editor of Philosophical
Magazine, at a celebration on Wednesday 10
February. In addition, proposal submitted to
The Leverhulme Trust, led by Mike and Dr Paul
Tangney (Materials), Professor Matthew Foulkes
(Physics) and Professor Arthur H Heuer (Case
Western Reserve University, USA) was funded. The
research grant, valued at £228,914, will fund the
project Quantum mechanics of dislocations and
grain boundaries in alumina.
Imperial Junior
Research Fellowship
awards
Dr Cecilia Mattevi (top
left), Research Associate
working with Professor
Manish Chhowalla, and
Dr Fang Xie (bottom
left), Research Associate
working with Dr Jason
Riley, Professor Neil
Alford and Dr Mary P
Ryan, were awarded
highly competitive
Imperial Junior Research Fellowships. In addition,
a paper entitled Structural evolution during the
reduction of chemically derived graphene oxide
by A Bagri, Dr Cecilia Mattevi, M Acik, Y Chabal,
Professor Manish Chhowalla, V B Shenoy was
accepted for publication in Nature Chemistry.
Image Chosen for
Nano Letters cover
A 3D schematic of a novel
enzyme assay created
by Dr Morgan Mager
(Research Associate
working with Professor Molly M Stevens) and
Daniel Aili (Linkoping University, Sweden), was
chosen for the cover of the April 2011 issue of
the ACS journal Nano Letters. In addition, an
article published by Morgan and Daniel entitled
Hybrid nanoparticle−liposome detection of
phospholipase activity was highlighted in the
Editor’s Choice section of the journal Science and
was also featured in a News and Views piece in
the journal Nature Chemistry.
HoKwon Kim
awarded NSERC
scholarship
HoKwon Kim (PhD
student in the
Department) was
awarded a Natural Science and Engineering
Council of Canada (NSERC) Postgraduate
Scholarship, valued at $CAD21,000 for three
years. These scholarships
provide financial support to
high-calibre students who are
engaged in master’s or doctoral
programs in the natural
sciences or engineering. In
addition, Hokwon was awarded
an Imperial College Trust travel
grant (valued at £500) to fund
his attendance at IEEE Nano
2010 in Ilsan, South Korea,
17–20 August 2010.
Shakiba wins Fluor
Corporation
scholarship
Shakiba Kaveh
(fourth year MEng students)
was awarded a final year
scholarship (£2,000) from
Fluor Corporation, (one of the
world’s largest publicly-owned
engineering, procurement,
construction, maintenance
and project management
companies). She is one of six
Imperial engineering students,
who have received such a
bursary.
The Department
would also like to
recognise the following
achievements:
Academic staff
An EPSRC proposal submitted
by Professors Neil M Alford
(PI) and David W McComb
(Co-Investigator), was funded.
The project (joint with UCL)
is entitled Nano-scale SQUID
magnetometry of oxide
heterointerfaces and is valued
at £1.3 million (£565,000 to
Imperial).
A paper written by Dan Brett
(UCL), Professor Alan Atkinson,
Brandon NP (ESE) and Dr
Stephen J Skinner entitled
Intermediate temperature
solid oxide fuel cells (Chem.
Soc. Rev. 37[8]:1568-78,
2008), was selected by
Essential Science Indicators SM
from Thomson Reuters as
the most-cited paper in the
research area of Chemistry.
In addition, Alan was made
Fellow of The American Ceramic
Society. Recognition of this
achievement was given at the
ACerS Honors and Awards
Banquet at the 112th Annual
meeting in Houston, Texas,
USA, October 2010.
Professor Manish Chhowalla
was awarded a Leverhulme
Trust Grant valued at £132k for
two years starting May 2010 to
fund a project entitled Large
area electronics with solution
processed chemically derived
graphene.
A paper by Dr David Dye and Dr
Russell Talling (with co-authors
in IMR, China and Tohoku,
Japan) based on work at the
ESRF in Grenoble is one of
the Top 25 ‘Hottest’ articles in
Acta Materialia for April–June
2010. The work investigates the
mechanics of the superelastic
phase transformations
exploited by low modulus
biocompatible beta titanium
alloys being developed for
orthopaedic applications. In
addition, David was awarded
the IOM 3 Harvey Flower
Titanium Prize 2010. The
prize is awarded annually
to a materials engineer for
contributions to titanium
metallurgy, alloy development,
applications and use of
titanium, performance
enhancement and innovations
in processing.
Dr Christopher M Gourlay was
awarded the IOM 3 Silver Medal
2010. This prize is awarded
to a member, under the age
of 30, in recognition of an
outstanding contribution to
the broad field of materials
science, engineering and
technology, including
promotion of their subject on a
national or international basis.
Professor Robin W Grimes and
Dr Bill Nuttall (University of
Cambridge) outlined a 20-year
master plan for the global
renaissance of nuclear energy.
The research was published
in the journal Science. Robin
also continues his role as our
media star and was interviewed
by freelance film makers for
an independent documentary
project exploring the issue of
nuclear energy in the UK. In
addition, Robin was awarded
the IOM 3 Griffith Medal and
Prize 2010.
Dr Peter D Haynes was
awarded the Institute of
Physics Maxwell Medal and
Prize 2010 for his work on
linear-scaling methods for
large-scale first-principles
simulation of materials based
on density-functional theory, in
particular his leading role in the
development of the ONETEP
code used in both academe
and industry. In addition,
Peter was elected Fellow of
the Institute of Physics and his
application to renew his Royal
Society University Research
Fellowship for a further three
years, was successful.
Dr Sandrine EM Heutz was
promoted to Senior Lecturer,
from 1 October 2010.
Dr Andrew P Horsfield was
promoted to Senior Lecturer,
from 1 October 2010.
Professor Bill Lee was
elected to The American
Ceramic Society (ACerS)
Board of Directors which
sets policy, approves the
budget, makes appointments
38 Department of Materials Annual Report 2009–10 www.imperial.ac.uk/materials www.imperial.ac.uk/materials Department of Materials Annual Report 2009–10 39