Willcock Polymer Group

The paper details an effective approach towards personalised nitinol stents which are targeted to a specific lesion in the artery, demonstrating a large improvement on commercial stents.

Congratulations to Caty Marsden, Sarah Woods (PhD student of Fiona Hatton), Mitra Soorani, and James Tinkler for their poster and presentation prizes at the Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering Research day! Edrea Phua and Thomas Baker also gave great oral presentations - well done everyone!

Well done to Edrea Phua for presenting her work on nanocomposites for protection with potential manufacture enabled by a bacteriophage! Edrea was one of four Willcock Group members presenting at the Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering research day and gave a great overview of her research.

Mitra Soorani presented both her computational and experimental research, in a presentation entitled: Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Bioactivity Changes Associated with the Incorporation of Copper in Silicate-based Glasses for Tissue Engineering. Big congratulations for winning the presentation prize Mitra!

Thomas Baker gave an oral presentation discussing work conducted throughout the course of his PhD: Structure-(thermal) property relationships for compostable plastic composites. Well done Tom!

A big congratulations to James Tinkler on his prize for presenting his work at the School of Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering research day! James detailed the design and synthesis of functional latex/silica nanocomposite films via colloidal self assembly.

Colum completed his Post-Doc in the Willcock and Butler groups, and will return to Ireland to begin his career as an Analytical Chemist. Good luck in the future Colum!

Thomas has recently begun an internship for the Waste & Resources Action Programme (more commonly known as WRAP) as an intern analyst to support their various projects. WRAP is a not-for-profit organisation, working with governments, businesses and citizens to create a world in which resources are sourced and used sustainably. WRAP activities include policy and technical support to Governments, delivery of public-facing campaigns, voluntary agreements with businesses, and financial mechanisms. Publicly facing activities WRAP have driven include the Courtauld Commitment, The Plastics Pact, and the campaigns Love Food Hate Waste and Recycle Now. Thomas's first project involves plastics market assessment scoping to assist partners in South America. This is a project with the World Bank to help nations understand the flow of plastics resin, goods, and waste and then target solutions to plastic pollution. He is soon to be involved in scoping the potential for new plastics recycling facilities in the UK, and work with Defra on creating a plastics waste hierarchy. 

Well done on completing your PhD Charlie, we are all very pleased for you!

Well done on passing your viva Tom! We are all very happy for you!