Departmental news

Dean of WMG, Professor Robin Clark; International Partnerships Manager, Nicole Craddock-Zhang; and International Academic Director – China, Dr Dawei Lu, travelled to China recently for a series of high-profile meetings with key representatives from higher education, industry and government.

The trip was a crucial part of WMG’s strategy to help future collaboration and drive innovation in the country.

Professor Clark and his team met with representatives from Beijing City University (Shanghai Operation) and East China University of Science and Technology, where they discussed further collaboration on both education programmes and research initiatives. They then headed to the Nanjing University of Science and Technology to explore student entrepreneurship programmes.

Meetings also took place with GAO Yingzhong, Director General, at the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) Zhejiang provincial bureau, where industry opportunities in the province were explored.

While in Zhejiang, constructive meetings were also held with Geely Holdings Group, China’s largest privately owned automotive company. Here Professor Clark and representatives from Geely Holdings discussed opportunities to support the company’s Automotive Engineering Institute.

Finally, there was the opportunity to re-connect with WMG alumni and hear more about their careers and business ventures post-graduation.

Commenting on the trip, Professor Robin Clark, Dean of WMG, said: “It was great to return to Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou after the pandemic. We strengthened WMG’s relationship with higher education partners, industries as well as government agencies that support our strategies.

“I was particularly pleased to be able to meet the alumni communities too, their enthusiasm was infectious. They were glad to see us, and they have proven to be great ambassadors in the industries they now work in, continuing to make an impact as part of the WMG vision.”

The University of Warwick is shedding the light on a distinguished battery researcher this International Day of Women and Girls in Engineering.

Dr Melanie Loveridge, Reader in Battery Materials and Cells at WMG at The University of Warwick, is also committed to improving the inclusivity of women and minority groups in her area of work. Her research focuses on lithium-ion batteries, helping to power net zero and a more sustainable world.

Dr Loveridge said: “The first lithium-ion batteries were used in small Sony cameras, now we are relying on them to power electric vehicles. We need much bigger sources of power to last longer, which has been a significant challenge.

“I conduct forensic analysis of batteries to help understand how they degrade over time, which is really important in knowing how to improve the way we manufacture them. Understanding why batteries fail is crucial, as the world shifts to more sustainable energy sources.

“My team uses specialised equipment such as electron microscopy, Xray based characterisation and mapping chemical elements in materials to look at the components within batteries under high magnification. Battery forensics needs a huge orchestra of highly sophisticated techniques.”

Starting her career in the industry, Dr Loveridge became fascinated with the science of batteries and decided to pursue an academic role to learn more. This has led to her publishing over 40 academic papers.

With over 15 years’ experience in academia, she has also given evidence from for her research specialisms for influential panels such as the House of Lords Science & Technology Committee and The Shadow Cabinet’s Round Table on Energy Storage.

Dr Loveridge added: “My research area is such a multidisciplinary field. I can interact with engineers and scientists from across many academic disciplines and industry partners, which is not commonplace in a lot of academic circles. It’s amazing to collaborate with lots of different people.”

Alongside her academic achievements, Dr Loveridge champions equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in her work. She has recently been appointed as Associate Dean of Research – where she is supporting an enhancing culture project funded by The University of Warwick, on a survey-led initiative with an aim to understand the challenges and barriers faced by minority groups and women in leading STEM-based research.

“Fortunately, lots of the funders I work with, such as the Faraday Institute, really value diversity and inclusion; we now have to show how we have outlined commitments to EDI in all of our grant applications. I think the gender imbalance in senior roles will change, but this will take time.

"As part of my EDI role, I’m also trying to make the working environment more inclusive, particularly for special interest groups. I find this really rewarding.”

By championing sustainable research, such as Dr Loveridge’s vital work on batteries, The University of Warwick is committed to creating a more sustainable world. Its Strategy 2030 sets out five key sustainability pathways to follow, including achieving Net Zero carbon emissions from scopes 1 and 2 by 2030, and scope 3 by 2050.

Find out more about Dr Loveridge’s research here: Battery Materials and Cells Group - WMG (warwick.ac.uk)

A recent paperLink opens in a new window published by Dr. Ian MertzLink opens in a new window, a postdoctoral researcher in the Theory and Foundations (FoCS)Link opens in a new window research group and the Centre for Discrete Mathematics and its Applications (DIMAP)Link opens in a new window, has disproved a longstanding conjecture on the limitations of space-bounded computation.

For many years it had been believed that a function, known as Tree Evaluation, would be the key to separating two fundamental classes of problems: those computable quickly (P), and those computable in low space (L). Mertz, along with James CookLink opens in a new window of Toronto, builds on their earlier work to show a low-space algorithm for Tree Evaluation, thus refuting this belief. In particular, their technique has attracted attention for shedding new light on the power of space-bounded computation, suggesting novel approaches to age-old questions in complexity theory. They show that space can be used in surprising ways, with the same memory serving many simultaneous purposes.

The paper, which Mertz will present at the 56th Annual ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing (STOC 2024)Link opens in a new window, has been invited to the special issue of SIAM Journal on Computing (SICOMP)Link opens in a new window for the conference. STOC is the main conference of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and one of the two premier venues for theoretical computer science, with only the top results being invited for publication in the special issue.

Mertz has also presented this work at many venues, including the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), Columbia University, Oxford University, Warwick (Online Complexity Seminar)Link opens in a new window, McGill University, and others.

We are happy to announce two recent promotions in the department effective from 1 August 2024:

• Dr Amina Asif has been promoted to Assistant Professor
• Dr Andrew Hague has been promoted to Associate Professor

Many congratulations to our colleagues for their achievements!

Dr Harjinder Lallie, Associate Professor (Cyber Security) at WMG at the University of Warwick explain: “The London cyber attack demonstrates the importance of cyber defences and proper back up plans, especially in organisations where it really can be a matter of life or death, like the NHS. With hospitals now having to resort to paper records in the wake of the attack, we must seriously weigh up the costs of defending ourselves versus the cost of doing nothing and accepting these attacks from hostile actors.

“With these attacks often able to manipulate our data as well as hold it to ransom, our most private data – such as our health records – must be protected more closely. To leave the medical information of patients out there without proper cyber security defence is the equivalent of leaving the files on a park bench or on a train. We must invest more in our own defences if we don’t want to see these types of attacks repeated time and again.”

Professors Reinhard Maurer, Scott Habershon, Tim Bugg, and Sébastien Perrier, have been recognised for their contributions to Chemistry.

The RSC Biotechnology Group Committee has named Dr Matt Jenner as winner of the 2024 RSC Felix Franks Biotechnology MedalLink opens in a new window

The work of Professor Graham Cormode has been recognized with a “test of time” award. The ACM SIGMOD conference presents an award each year for the paper from SIGMOD 10-12 years previously that has had the biggest impact, and passed the “test-of-time”. The 2014 paper “PrivBayes: private data release via bayesian networks” (Jun Zhang, Graham Cormode, Cecilia M. Procopiuc, Divesh Srivastava, Xiaokui Xiao) was selected for this honour. The award will be presented at the 2024 ACM SIGMOD Conference in Santiago.