Materials Processing & Manufacturing Group

Masoumeh, with a PhD in Engineering Materials from the University of Sheffield awarded in 2007, has extensive research experience in metal manufacturing processes, including casting, thermomechanical processing, and welding technologies. She is currently an assistant professor in sustainable manufacturing and materials in Coventry University, working on optimisation of metal processing through process modelling and utilising advanced characterisation techniques. She is focused on developing sustainable thermomechanical processes to manufacture and extend service life of advanced structural steel components for energy applications.

Sarah is Strategic Partnership Lead at Glass Futures, and where she develops networks, partnerships and strategies for collaborative programmes. She is also the strategic lead for Foundation Industries Ventures, supporting spin-outs and start-ups to reach market within the Foundation Industries. With a background in materials science and engineering, Sarah previously led the technical delivery of the Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge at Innovate UK, a £250m programme of public and private funding supporting the sustainable transformation of the Foundation Industries.

She studied her for her MEng in Materials Science at Mansfield College, Oxford and DPhil at Wolfson College, Oxford. Her research focused on novel alloy development for the Nuclear Industry working closely with Rolls Royce and the National Nuclear Laboratory. 

Sarah has been in the Materials Processing Industry for the past 10 years, initially conducting research at both the University of Oxford and WMG, University of Warwick, before joining Innovate UK.

She is a champion for sustainability, increasing the accessibility and inclusivity of the manufacturing industries. In her spare time, she is a keen runner, cyclist and baker.

Dr. Siddharth Lokachari is a Rolls-Royce Research fellow within the Faculty of Engineering's Coatings and Surface Engineering group at the University of Nottingham's Rolls-Royce Manufacturing and On-Wing University Technology Centre. He focuses on advancing miniaturization strategies for the thermal spray process and developing next generation thermal barrier coatings for aero-engines as part of the Rolls-Royce REINSTATE project, a £10.5 million initiative funded by ATI and Innovate UK. Siddharth is also an active member of the British Standards Institute (BSI) standards committee STI/040. Prior to joining UoN, he contributed to aerospace suspension feedstock production at Treibacher Industry in Austria. He holds a PhD from the University of Munich, Germany, and a Master's degree in mechanical engineering from Nagaoka University, Japan.

Mark is Professor and Director of Manufacturing and Materials at Cranfield University. He has over 40 years’ experience in manufacturing and materials. He spent 13 years working in industry in automotive and tier 1&2 suppliers into manufacturing both in the UK and abroad before moving into academia in 1995. In 2012 he joined Cranfield after 17 years at the University of Birmingham. He has managed over £17.5 M of research projects since 1999 and has over 350 publications, technical reports, articles and books. He is Director of the UKRI Transforming the Foundation Industries Research and Innovation Hub (TransFIRe), and co-Director of the Engineering and Physical sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Centre for Doctoral Training in Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing which offers a triple degree with the Universities of Warwick and Exeter. Mark is on the Royal Academy of Engineering National Engineering Policy Centre (NEPC) working group on Materials for Net-Zero and sits on the Advisory Board for the Advanced School on Circular Metal Components for the Swedish Manufacturing Industry (CIRCUMET).

Until last December Mark was also co-Director of the Circular Economy Network plus in Transport Systems (CENTS). Mark has sat on the EPSRC Peer Review College since 2003 and sits on the council of the Cast Metals Federation, is a reviewer for the European Space Agency (ESA) and Enterprise Ireland. He is a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Environmentalist and sits on the Society for the Environment Honorary Fellows Panel. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3), and is the chair of the Materials Processing and Manufacturing leadership group. He also sits on the IOM3 Sustainable Development and Light Metals leadership groups. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Cast Metals Engineers (ICME). Mark was Chair of the Solidification Committee of The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS, USA) for two years until 2018. He is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Founders and Freeman of the City of London.

With his co-authors he is the recipient of the 2024 TMS Light Metals Warren Peterson Subject Award for Cast Shop for Aluminum Production with a paper entitled “Defect Minimisation in Vacuum-Assisted Plaster Mould Investment Casting Through Simulation of High-Value Aluminium Alloy Components”. Mark was the recipient of the 2019 John Campbell Gold Medal awarded by ICME for “continual advancement in sustainable manufacturing and promotion of excellence in casting technologies”. He was the 2010 Winner of the University of Birmingham Josiah Mason Founder’s Award for Business Advancement and in 2008 was the recipient of the Oliver Stubbs Medal (ICME).

His main areas of current research are in circular economy and sustainability including resource efficient manufacturing, process modelling and novel casting processes. He has worked with many well-known names across a number of sectors including Rolls-Royce, Depuy-Synthes (Johnson & Johnson), Bentley, Aston Martin, BAES, Finmeccanica, GKN, EnCirc360, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Hanson Cement, Constellium, Siemens, TPC AB, Vesuvius, St Gobain, Luxfer, Lucideon, Pilkington Glass, Trent Refractories, and Coca-Cola. He has also championed working with many small companies especially SMEs who supply to large companies.