Department of Materials celebrates Postgraduate Research Day 2025

The Department of Materials held its annual Postgraduate Research (PG) Day on Monday 31 March 2025.

The event brings together Research Postgraduate students in the Department of Materials to share their research and connect with peers and academics. This year was a full day of research ideas, discussion, and celebration of everyone’s hard work.

Industrial partners—including the UK Atomic Energy Authority, Alloyed, Shell, RFC Power Ltd, and more—were also invited to attend this year to share their expertise with students.

Professor Christopher Gourlay, Director of Postgraduate Research, commented: "It was great to see the breadth and depth of research underway in the department.

Congratulations to GradSoc for organising such a successful event and many thanks to all who contributed through chairing, posters, oral presentations, enthusiastic questions and judging.”

Presentation Prize Winners

Irea Mosquera Lois was awarded first prize in the 'Best Speaker' award, with Edoardo Angela in second place.

Carolina Borrelli was awarded first prize in the 'Best Scientific Content of a Lecture' category, with Susannah Lea in second place.

Poster Prize Winners

Enny Tran was awarded first prize for the 'Best Poster Design and Layout'.

Vishanth Puttaswamy was awarded first prize for the 'Best Industrial Relevance of a Poster'.

Karim Bakkar was awarded first prize for the 'Best Scientific Content' poster

Image Competition Winner

Zizheng Ge was awarded 'Best Photographic Image' in the GradSoc image competition. 

This image was captured during Zizheng's first attempt to prepare an 80-nm-thick section for TEM imaging. To their surprise, bacteria (lower right) and silica nanoparticles (upper left) appeared in the same field of view. It looked like a microscopic battlefield—an unexpected encounter between biology and nanomaterials.