Dr. Matt Unthank is an Associate Professor in Polymer Chemistry at Northumbria University and has background in polymer, plastics and coatings research, specifically for commercially relevant applications. He has a career spanning both industrial and academic roles across the pharmaceutical and industrial chemicals industries (AkzoNobel and GSK) in addition to more recent academic experience both as a visiting academic at the University of Manchester and in his current role as Associate Professor in Polymer Chemistry at Northumbria University. Over the last five years he worked on projects from a wide range of funders including UKRI, EPSRC, DSTL and OfWAT in addition to higher TRL projects working with a wide range of industrial partners. He is a member of the EPSRC Early Career Forum (ECF) in Manufacturing Research (https://ecfmanufacturing.com/current-members/) and co-lead for the bulk chemical sector in the £5M EPSRC-Transforming the Foundation Industries (TransFire) Hub involving 12 academic institutions, 49 companies and 14 non-governmental organisations (https://transfire-hub.org/). Further to this, he is industrial engagement lead in the ‘Recent Appointees in Polymer Science’ group (RAPS, https://www.raps.org.uk/) and founding member of the ‘Synthesis and Polymer Innovation’ centre at Northumbria (SPIN, www.northumbria.ac.uk/spin) for polymer scale-up and commercialisation. He was also recently awarded an EPSRC Researcher in Residence fellowship, to collaborate with the High Value Manufacturing Catapult in the development of sustainable high-performance composites and plastics.