News and Projects

  • The use of phase change material as an actuator in linkage fabric structures

    A new research paper from my research group shows the latest developments in our work developing wearable assistive linkage fabrics. The work was led by PhD student Christian Partik. We are developing wearable assistive devices that can actively modulate stiffness on demand is envisioned to support joints and facilitate limb movement. This paper shows how…

  • Comfort Loop Research Project

    I am leading this project which was recently awarded UKRI £1.75M funding to address the plastic waste issues of nappies, incontinence products and period products. With birth rates increasing in some parts of the world and ageing populations a significant factor in others, demand is rising for disposable nappies, period products, incontinence pads and similar…

  • Automatic identification and classification of compostable and biodegradable plastics using hyperspectral imaging

    In our latest paper we describe how we used hyperspectral imaging to create an automatic identification and and classification system for biodegradable and compostable plastics. Read the paper here.

  • Two PhD positions available in my lab

    PhD in Animate materials to solve plastic waste issues Restoration of forests is part of the strategy to achieve net-zero target emissions by enhancing the removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The UK has pledged to plant 2 billion trees by 2050. The most common afforestation strategy uses tree shelters to protect planted seedlings…

  • Home Compostable Plastics Dont Work

    Our new research paper published in the journal Frontiers in Sustainability is based on a 2 year citizen science study on home compostable plastics. We engaged with 9,701 UK citizens geographically spread across the UK to examine their capability, opportunity, and motivation to do this. Of this cohort 1,648 citizens performed home compost experiments to…

  • Jack Perkins Prize

    Our research paper ‘Additive manufacturing techniques for smart prosthetic liners‘ has been awarded the Jack Perkins Prize for best paper in the journal Medical Engineering and Physics in 2021. The work was led by the brilliant Dr Ben Oldfrey.

  • Latest Research Paper on Compostable Plastics

    Our latest paper is a method to use behaviour change to improve compostable plastic disposal: Its FREE and OPEN ACCESS

  • For the People: By the People

    I wrote an article for the The Chemical Engineer magazine about ethical research goals and the power of citizen science. Its FREE to read.

  • Our Sustainability research honoured with Thornton Medal

    Accepted the Thornton Medal by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining on behalf of my research team for a talk on sustainability in materials systems.

  • New Research Paper

    Our latest paper reviews a key technology to make biodegradable and compostable plastic sustainable – automatic sorting. Its FREE and OPEN ACCESS here: