Board – Natural Materials Association

NMA Board

Dr Parvez Alam is currently a Reader in Mechanical Engineering at The University of Edinburgh, UK. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, a Chartered Mechanical Engineer, Chair of the Natural Materials Group: a Technical Community of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, and an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Biology at Universitas Gadja Mada, Indonesia. He was awarded the 2012 Per Brahe Prize for his research in biomimetics, and became a Technology Academy of Finland Laureate for his work on coral-inspired crystal engineering in 2014, an award conferred by the Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in Finland.

Parvez earned his Doctorate from the University of Bath in 2004 under the supervision of Dr Martin Ansell FIMMM, where his research focussed on mechanically characterising timber reinforcing and repair systems using bonded-in fibre reinforced plastics. He then moved to the Department of Chemical Engineering at Abo Akademi University, Finland, where he worked with Professor Martti Toivakka in the areas of paper science, mass flow, micromechanics, paper coatings, and multiphysics modelling. In 2013, he was awarded the title of Docent(Habilitation) from Abo Akademi University in Finland and built a research group in Composite Materials and Biostructures. This new trajectory led to a wide range of new and interesting discoveries in the area of comparative biomechanics, examples of which include: the biomechanical and kinematic characterisation of the tree-climbing, water-hopping fish (Periophthalmus variabilis) with colleagues from Universitas Gadjah Mada in Indonesia, the discovery of a spider species (Nephilengys cruentata) in Kenya that spins the world’s toughest recorded egg sac silk, the role of microstructure in guiding the passive decorating strategies of the crab Tiarinia cornigera, and work into the biomechanics of sperm whale bone architectures with colleagues at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

After moving to Scotland, he held the post of Marie-Curie Very Experienced Researcher at The University of Edinburgh between 2016-18. During this tenure, he worked with Professor Conchúr Ó Brádaigh FREng FRSE on the fatigue modelling of carbon fibre reinforced composites for use in tidal turbine blades, and in addition, took a short sabbatical to travel to the Kalahari Desert in Namibia to learn Ju’Hoansi, one of the world’s oldest extant click-languages. While in Namibia, he also seized the opportunity to research the composite designs and manufacturing methods of Ju’Hoansi arrows, work that has since been publicly presented, and published in learned society magazines. After a second short sabbatical to gain a Professional Certificate in Innovation and Technology at MIT, he began his tenure as an academic at The University of Edinburgh, where he currently runs a group that conducts research on a broad range of interdisciplinary topics related to biomimetic design, mechanical metamaterials, comparative biomechanics, robotics, multi-body systems, and composites engineering. Some research highlights from his group at Edinburgh include: the development of 3D projected 4-polytopes as a new class of mechanical metamaterial, the morpho-mechanical characterisation of varanid lizard claw gripping efficiencies, the release of AInsectID – an open source artificially intelligent software for insect identification, and the design of a walking necro-robot beetle with the highest payload-ratio of any walking robot recorded to date. At Edinburgh, he also lectures courses on engineering design, having previously developed courses in composites engineering, computational modelling and biomimetics while in the Nordic and South East Asian regions.

Iris Anderson BEM has spent the majority of her career within MAFF, DEFRA and more recently in The Department of Energy and Climate Change. Her various roles have included Head of Energy Innovation and Head of Renewable Materials. She had overall responsibility for R & D coordination in the UK and an overview of the activity within the EU. She was involved with the National Non Food Crops Centre and led the project to inject biomethane into the national gas grid. She set up the Anaerobic Digestion Demonstration Facility at CPI, the High Value Manufacturing Catapult in Wilton. She is a Technical expert promoting bio renewable opportunities to businesses and provides consultancy and advice to businesses that develop and adopt bio renewables. Her work has given her a unique knowledge of the various stakeholders in the bioenergy and biomass industries including industry, academia and innovation bodies. She has supported bioenergy and biomass developments and other related initiatives in energy and renewables, including the Biomass gasifier review. She has developed UK policy on the use of bio resources, with emphasis on bioenergy and energy from waste to maximise efficiency and greenhouse gas reductions

Dr Chris Holland is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Sheffield. Prior to this he studied Biology and obtained his doctorate from Oxford University. His group’s research uses tools developed for the physical sciences to better understand how processing effects performance in natural materials, with a focus on relating protein hydration to function

Dr. Dipa Roy is a Senior Lecturer in Composite Materials and Processing at the University of Edinburgh (UoE). She has over 20 years of experience in the field of polymers (both natural and synthetic) and composites. She joined the School of Engineering at UoE in January 2017. She was an Assistant Professor at the University of Calcutta, India, between 2003 to 2011 in the Department of Polymer Science and Technology, where she led five Government of India-funded projects as Principal Investigator. She guided eight PhD students and several B.Tech /M.Tech Theses there as Principal Supervisor. She was the Visiting Faculty at the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, India between 2003-2011. In 2011 she joined the Irish Composites Centre (IComp) at the University of Limerick, Ireland and conducted collaborative research with industries like Bombardier, Henkel etc. She participated in several Irish Government and EU funded proposals. She holds a patent on dielectric heating of polymeric materials (WO2016170046A1) which originated from an Enterprise Ireland funded Commercialisation project. After joining UoE in 2017, she was PI on a Feasibility Study project on thermoplastic fibre-metal hybrid laminates (EP/P006701/1) funded by the EPSRC Future Composites Manufacturing Research Hub. She has received funding in March 2019 as PI from the Scottish Research Partnership in Engineering (SRPe)-National Manufacturing Institute for Scotland (NMIS) and Hexcel Advanced Composites Ltd. She has published over 70 peer-reviewed journal papers and 12 book chapters. She has been the editor to an Elsevier book in 2017. She has published over 35 conference papers

Dr Hector Archila is a Senior Lecturer at UWE, and is the founder and Director of Research and Innovation at Amphibia BASE Ltd (www.amphibiabase.co.uk) where he leads the development of commercially sound bio-based products using engineered bamboo as the primary material. He is a professional architect, researcher and entrepreneur with an industrial and scholar with a background in architecture, material science and structural engineering. His professional and academic career has revolved around these disciplines and a long-standing interest in finding context-appropriate, sustainable and technologically and economically feasible bio-based solutions for the built environment (more at www.amphibiabase.co.uk). Hector finished a PhD on materials science and engineering at the University of Bath, where he is now a visiting research fellow. He has delivered several lectures on the use of engineered bamboo products and technologies in construction and participates actively in scientific, advisory and standardization committees such as ISO technical committees and the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR)’s Task Force on Bamboo Construction. His on-going research activities and interests include the study of thermo-hydro-mechanical modifications applied to bamboo, the design and development of bio-based products and technological solutions for medium to high rise buildings and lightweight free-form structures and the use of computational and parametric design tools in architectural and structural engineering. Hector believes that there is an untapped potential for optimised, commercially and technically feasible bio-based structures for taller, energy and thermally efficient green buildings that respond to emerging concerns over resource availability, climate change, rapid population growth and urban expansion

Nilmini Dissanayake is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Natural Material Innovation (CNMI) within the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge. Nilmini is currently involved in the EU Horizon funded project WOODCIRCLES, an innovative project that aims to improve the circularity of wood used in construction by reusing and recycling to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, waste generation and materials consumption. Nilmini is assessing sustainability using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to quantify the environmental impact when reused and recycled wood is used for construction.
Nilmini completed her PhD at the University of Plymouth on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for flax fibre-reinforced polymer matrix composites. She worked at the University of Exeter as a postdoctoral Researcher on a project funded by EPSRC to improve the mechanical properties of natural fibre-reinforced composites for potential use in automotive body panels. Following a 5-year career break, she joined NPL as a Higher Research Scientist, having been awarded a Daphne Jackson Fellowship in 2018 to return to research. During the fellowship, Nilmini investigated the influence of moisture uptake on natural fibre-reinforced polymer matrix composites using accelerated ageing techniques, and mechanical creep was modelled using TTSP (Time-temperature superpositioning) by DMA (Dynamic Mechanical Analysis). She led projects in the sustainability of fibre-reinforced composites and the durability of natural fibre-reinforced composites. Her work included investigating the data quality and measurement gaps within the LCA framework for composites, developing a set of recommendations and guidelines to improve the data quality and investigating the traceability of recycled carbon fibre. Nilmini is a Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv), Chartered Scientist (CSci) and a fellow of the Institute of Materials Minerals and Mining (FIMMM). She is a member of the IOM3 Advisory Council, representing the Southeast Region. She is also involved in the Sustainability working group of the IOM3 Composites group and the Bioladies Network.

Lauren Eggleton is a Postgraduate Researcher in the Natural Materials Group at The University of Sheffield. She has a Masters in Biomaterials Science and previously held a position at Philips Research working in Oral Healthcare. With a background in biomaterials, her research focus is primarily on understanding and bridging the gap between structure and function in gastropod mucus and developing them as a model organism for the study of ecto secretions.

Ateeq ur Rehman is currently a PhD researcher in the School of Engineering, Institute of Materials and Processes, The University of Edinburgh. His research focusses on biomimetic design with an aim to developing multifaceted engineering materials of the future. More specifically, he explores the extraordinary architectures of silk cocoons with an aim of developing bioinspired ripstop textiles. Prior to starting his PhD, for 5 years, he was a lecturer at the National Textile University, Pakistan where he worked on textiles and clothing. Prior to this, he worked in various managerial positions within the textile and clothing industry. He has a Masters in Textiles

Roy Brooks has over three decades of experience in innovation marketing, co-founding three technology-focused agencies, including the UK’s first. Throughout his career, he has developed global strategies and campaigns for major technology brands such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, SanDisk, and Samsung. Now, as the co-founder of Verdatica, the world’s first comprehensive database of bio-based materials, Roy is leveraging data to scale bio-circular materials for industry

External Advisory Committee

Angela Morris, BA Hons, MA, MinstPkg, FRSA is a former Chair of the NMA and CEO and founder of The Wool Packaging Company. Creator of the Woolcool® brand, Angela ran her own packaging design businesses for over 30 years and her experience covers a variety of different sectors, from major UK retail high street stores such as BHS, global confectionery companies Nestlé and Cadbury’s, to water filtration systems for Fairey Industrial Ceramics and automotive components for Roll-Royce. Working as a packaging consultant and advisor to her clients, she often became an integral part of their businesses, helping companies to market their products successfully, through the introduction of superior and innovative packaging solutions, in many cases utilising natural materials. While Angela was engaged as a packaging consultant with the National Trust in 2002, using pure sheep wool as an insulated packaging material was first conceived. By 2007 the ‘Green Agenda’ had become a major focus globally and potential food industry customers saw wool-based packaging as a genuine environmentally friendly option for delivering their fresh and frozen perishable foodstuffs direct to the consumer via Internet mail order. In June 2009 The Wool Packaging Company Limited was founded and the flagship product Woolcool® has since grown to become the insulated packaging of choice for many leading UK and European food companies such as Abel & Cole, Riverford, Fortnum & Mason and Hello Fresh GmbH. Woolcool® is now being further developed with the help of UK Government ‘SMART’ funding, to create innovative, sustainable cold chain packaging solutions for the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors, particularly in the field of global vaccine delivery. Angela has lectured and supervised postgraduate students and given talks on Design Management, Innovation and Green Entrepreneurship at several universities across the UK. Due to the vision, passion, dedication and experience of The Wool Packaging Company founder, Angela was invited by the IOM3 organisation in 2013 to launch and Chair the new Natural Materials Association (NMA), a position she held until October 2016.

Dr. Graham Ormondroyd is a former NMA Chair and Head of Materials at the BioComposites Centre, Bangor University. Graham has a degree in Forestry and Forest products, and a PhD in Wood Science and now leads a team of multi-disciplined materials scientists researching areas from solid wood to polymers and their use and end of life. With a background in forestry, forest industries technology and natural materials science Dr. Graham Ormondroyd’s research work has focused on novel wood protection techniques, chemical modification and novel resin systems. Graham sits on a number of committees throughout the UK and Europe and these include standards committees, advisory committees and scientific committees for organizations such as the COST actions.