In honour of International Day of Women and Girls in Science (11th February) and International Women's Day (8th March) the Energy GRP would like to celebrate the work of our female members of staff, working at all levels and in many disciplines across all areas of Energy research and support here at the University of Warwick.

 

In the Energy GRP Steering Committee…

Dr Marina Antoniou - School of Engineering

Dr Marina Antoniou (MA) is an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick. She has been the holder of several highly competitive research fellowships and grants including the Royal Society Research Fellowship 2017 (SiC Power Devices for Smart Grid Systems, £860k) , a Junior Research Fellowship (Selwyn College) and an Early Career EPSRC Centre for Power Electronics award, all of which involved the design and development of power SiC or Si high power devices. She has published over 25 journal papers and 30 peer reviewed conference papers, with over 500 citations. She has written five patents and two book chapters. She is a technical committee member for ISPSD, the leading international conference in the area of power semiconductor devices and a journal editor for the “Phil. Trans. of the Royal Society A” and Energies (special issue on Power Devices). She is currently also shadowing the Chief Scientific Advisor for the UK government (Department of Business Energy Innovation Strategy (BEIS)) as a Policy Associate sponsored by the Royal Society. Her current research interests include the analysis, development and modeling of Power Semiconductor Devices: Development of novel devices for addressing issues of energy efficiency, reliability, sustainability and cost effectiveness for medium and high voltage applications, Design of Power Integrated Circuits and High Frequency power devices using Wide bandgap materials (SiC, GaN, Diamond).

Dr Jenny Cooper MBE - School of Engineering

Jenny specialises in energy research and development management with particular focus on energy networks. She has over thirty years' experience in innovation within the energy industry, with an initial focus on the electricity industry, developing into gas, short and long term strategic planning, environmental issues, new technology and increasingly all aspects of energy technology.

As Innovation Manager for National Grid for over ten years she focused on the development and management of the innovation programme for the GB gas and electricity transmission networks setting the Research and Development (R&D) Strategy and increasing the R&D profile within the company, with stakeholders and with Ofgem. She is currently an independent consultant with an emphasis on developing relationships and delivering solutions with research and development suppliers and end users - both academic and industrial.

Jenny is an honorary professor in the School of Engineering and serves as an independent representative on the Energy GRP Steering Committee and a member of the School’s Industrial Advisory Board. She works with UKRI including as chair of the Circular Economy Working Group and the Supergen High Level Group for EPSRC and an advisory board member for the Durham Energy Institute and Turing Institute.

Dr Caroline Kuzemko - Politics and International Studies

Caroline is an Associate Professor in International Political Economy in the Politics and International Studies department.

She has research interests in:

• political economy of energy
• processes of institutional change
• sustainable energy and climate change politics and policy
• local (energy) governance

Caroline is also a member of the Energy GRP Steering Committee.

Professor Jihong Wang - School of Engineering

Jihong's research interest includes power system modelling and control, energy storage and grid integration, energy efficient actuators and optimal control methods. She has published over 100 journal papers and gained a number of best paper awards. Her research has led to several practical innovations, including a smart voltage controller product and a clean pneumatic UPS (uninterrupted power supply) through joint research projects with industry. She successfully led the EPSRC Grand Challenge Programme in Energy Storage “Integrated Market-fit and Affordable Grid-scale Energy Storage (IMAGES)” (EP/K002228/1, http://integratedenergystorage.org/). Through the project, an open-source software tool has been developed for compressed air and thermal energy storage (http://estoolbox.org). She is Co-I for Supergen Energy Storage Hub (EP/L019469/1) and member of Supergen Energy Storage Network+ 2019 (EP/S032622/1). She is also part of the Joint UK-India Clean Energy Centre (JUICE) (EP/P003605/1).

Jihong is the theme lead for Energy Storage as a member of the Energy GRP Steering Committee.

In the School of Engineering…

Professor Xianping Liu - School of Engineering

Prof Liu’s area of energy research interests include: Functional surfaces for anti-corrosion, self-cleaning and enhancing performance in applications such as heat exchange, battery electrodes. Her research group has an international reputation in surface measurement and characterisation, novel instruments design and development. She is a leading expert in quantifying human's touch-feel perception with the development of a Novel Tribological Probe Microscope (TPM) for measuring surface's geometrical, mechanical and tribological properties.​

Faye Padfield - School of Engineering

Faye is a project officer within the School of Engineering. Faye is currently project managing ICWES18, the 18th International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists. The conference will be hosted at the University of Warwick in September 2020. Faye's role is to plan, co-ordinate and oversee all of the administrative and logistical arrangements necessary for a large academic conference and exhibition, ensuring the smooth running of this large event. Having worked as an administrator for the Energy GRP in previous years, and project managed the highly successful European Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials hosted by the university in 2018 (ECSCRM 2018), Faye will be drawing on her extensive experience in event and project management to ensure that this latest project completes successfully.

In addition, Faye is the administrator for the new, university funded Centre for Doctoral Training in Future Mobility Technologies, established in 2019 by The School of Engineering and WMG. Faye has been instrumental in the set up and smooth running of this new centre, ensuring compliance and coherence with departmental practices and university regulations. The centre which trains students in the areas of Wide Bandgap Power Electronics and Connected Autonomous Vehicles is now recruiting it’s second cohort for October 2020.

Professor Jennifer Wen - School of Engineering

Jennifer currently leads Warwick FIRE, a multidisciplinary research laboratory for both fundamental and applied research into fire and explosion hazards as well as accidental release of hazardous materials. Jennifer's specific energy expertise and interests include thermal energy; nuclear fission; heat pumps; biofuels; hydrogen; fluid dynamics; energy storage; heating and cooling.

In the Warwick Manufacturing Group…

Dr Claire Dancer - WMG

Claire is a Materials Scientist, and her research experience focuses on processing and characterisation of ceramic and ceramic-composite materials. Her primary research interests are focused on manufacturing functional composite materials for electromagnetic applications, sintering of ceramic materials and graded structures by low energy routes, and determining methods for co-processing materials in complex heterogeneous structures such as electrochemical devices.

Professor Claire Davis - WMG

Claire hold the Royal Academy of Engineering / Tata Steel Research Chair in Low Energy Steel Processing and she heads the Advanced Steel Research Centre in WMG. Claire leads research on electromagnetic sensors for steel characterisation, including in an EPSRC funded project working with Professor Tony Peyton at Manchester University on Real-time In-line Microstructural Evaluation (RIME). She is the Warwick University lead for the EPSRC Manufacturing the Future project SUSTAIN, working with the UK steel industry and the Universities of Swansea and Sheffield, on sustainable steel manufacturing and use. She is also the Warwick University lead for the EPSRC-Tata Steel Prosperity Partnership project, with Swansea University for Rapid Alloy Prototyping for new steel grade and process development. A further interest is in electrical steel development and performance where she works with Dr Juliette Soulard from the electric machines group at WMG.

Dr Melanie Loveridge - WMG

Mel works in the Energy Innovation Centre and is an Associate Professor in the Electrochemical Materials group, based in the International Automotive Research Centre at WMG. Her group conducts research into new battery materials development, correlative metrology, characterisation and battery forensics. She also has interests in developing 2D materials, is a member of The Graphene Flagship and is an investigator on one of The Faraday Institution's initial projects. She recently featured in the Energy GRP Interview with a Researcher.

Dr Chaoying Wan - WMG

Chaoying's main scientific interest concerns the chemistry and physics of functional organic and inorganic nanomaterials, hierarchically structured composites with emphasis on polymer based (nano)composites. She specialises in synthesis and processing of thermoplastics and elastomer composites with reliable, sustainable and green principles. She has developed self-healing and shape memory dielectric elastomers and piezoelectric polymers for actuation and energy harvesting applications; functional polymers for batteries and fuel cells.

In the Department of Physics…

Dr Rachel Edwards - Department of Physics

Rachel is an Associate Professor (Reader) in Physics. Her main research interests are in non-contact generation and detection of ultrasound using lasers and electromagnetic acoustic transducers. These have applications in low temperature measurements of new materials, such as superconductors and new magnetic alloys, and non-destructive testing, in particular detection of cracking and other defects in structures. Rachel is very involved in outreach, and enjoys talking to school groups about science and its applications.

Dr Oksana Trushkevych - Department of Physics

Oksana is a senior research fellow developing a range of ultrasonic sensors (low cost, large area and having high resolution) to monitor safety-critical components and structures, reduce failures in high power electronics and make a step change in the speed and cost of inspection. Her specific energy expertise and interests include Energy security, Engineering materials, Industry structures and strategies, Sensors and microsensors.

In the Sociology Department…

Professor Alice Mah - Sociology

Professor Alice Mah is an urban, political, and environmental sociologist with research interests in global environmental justice, deindustrialisation, multi-sited ethnography, and corporate responsibility.

Alice is the Principal Investigator of Toxic Expertise: Environmental Justice and the Global Petrochemical Industry. This project builds on her previous research on the toxic legacies of abandoned chemical industries in Niagara Falls and on petrochemical pollution in the Mississippi Chemical Corridor. She is currently writing a book based on the project, a multi-site corporate ethnography of the petrochemical value chain. Her latest book, Toxic Truths: Environmental Justice and Citizen Science in a Post-Truth Age (with Thom Davies), will be published by Manchester University Press later this year.

In the Department of Statistics…

Dr Martine Barons - Department of Statistics

Martine's research is primarily in decision support and food-energy-water nexus are so inextricably interlinked that none can be effectively researched in isolation from the others. Her principal research application is in household food security, but also works in stability of the electricity networks and zero carbon decision support.

In Warwick Business School…

Professor Giuliana Battisti - Warwick Business School

Giuliana's research is in economics, econometrics and statistics. She has a particular interest in innovation models and the dynamics of the diffusion and adoption of new technologies including low carbon technologies, solar and wind energy, and environmental standards and practices. An aspect of this is the aggregated behaviour of consumers and its relation to government policy, consumer choice and switching behaviour.