I work within the Materials Team and offer advice and expertise in the in Smart Materials, especially related to emerging and potential commercial areas like metamaterials, self-healing technologies and energy generation, transmission and storage. I work closely with colleagues in my team as well as those in other teams and sectors in order to share knowledge and facilitate collaboration and networking across sectors. I am also interested in textiles from technical and smart ones to fashion, both the manufacture as well as their sustainability and circularity. To this end I am working with the Made Smarter Innovation Network colleagues looking at digital technologies for textiles and fashion as well as other colleagues on the potential routes to a more sustainable sector.

My background is in technical sales and marketing of alumina chemicals where I learnt about materials in a wide variety of industries from cables and moulding compounds to ceramics and refractories. Through working in RDA’s and Materials KTN and now Innovate UK KTN I have built an understanding of the needs of innovation linked to materials and their technologies.