Our staff

Tomislav Friščić is a Professor and Leverhulme International Chair in Green and Sustainable Chemistry. His research group pursues the applications, fundamental understanding, and scaling-up of different forms of solid-state reactivity, such as mechanochemistry, photochemistry, thermochemistry, and more with the ultimate aim to establish a new, more efficient and environmentally-friendly system of chemical and materials synthesis. His work often involves industry partners in the pharmaceuticals, mining, metals, biomass, and advanced materials space, and he is a co-founder of two start-up companies. He is a founding (co)Editor-in-Chief of RSC Mechanochemistry, the first journal dedicated to mechanochemistry, and a founding Co-Director of the UK RAM Facility for Sustainable Chemical Manufacturing.

He has co-authored >300 research publications, book chapters and patent applications, and his group’s research has led to numerous international awards, including the American Chemical Society National Award for Affordable Green Chemistry (for collaboration with Genentech-Roche, 2024), the RSC Corday-Morgan Prize and Lectureship (2023), the John C. Polanyi Award by the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada (2022), the “Spiridion Brusina” Medal of the Croatian Society for Natural Sciences (2021), the Award for Research Excellence in Materials Chemistry by the Canadian Society for Chemistry (2019), National Research Council Steacie Prize for Natural Sciences (2018), the RSC Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize and Lectureship (2011) etc. 

Dr Erli Lu is an Associate Professor in Mechanochemistry and Sustainable Synthesis at School of Chemistry, University of Birmingham. Erli obtained a BEng degree in Polymer Materials from Tianjin Polytechnic University in 2006, followed by a PhD in Organometallic Chemistry from Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (2012, under the supervision of Professor Yaofeng Chen). He spent over 7 years in the group of Professor Stephen T Liddle FRSE FRSC (06.2012 – 08.2019, Nottingham and Manchester) investigating actinide coordination chemistry. In 2019, Erli joined Newcastle University (UK) to start his independent career, and switched his research from the heaviest elements (actinide metal) to the lightest ones (alkali metal).

In July 2024, Erli moved from Newcastle to Birmingham. The Lu group focuses on exploiting mechanochemistry to push s-block metal chemistry into new territories, such as unconventional oxidation states (eg sodium anion), unusual materials (eg free electron materials electrides), and unlocking new avenues in tackling grand challenges (eg degradation and upcycling of “forever chemicals” such as Teflon).

Jason is an Associate Professor at the School of Engineering. His research fields span thermofluids, multiphase fluid dynamics, and the mechanochemical processing of advanced materials (e.g. graphene, h-BN, transition metal dichalcogenides, etc.). Part of his work across these disciplines is on investigating the interface between fluid mechanics underpinning synthesis processes and material outcomes. He has published 50 articles in scientific journals, is co-inventor on 20 patents, and co-founder of a spin-out company that sustainably manufactures advanced materials using mechanical force. His work has been applied to areas including microelectronics cooling for telecommunications and aerospace, environmental particle fouling and clean air, clean water, and sustainable production and processing of two-dimensional materials.

Professor Michael Bryant is Chair of Tribology and Corrosion Engineering at the School of Engineering. His research focuses on multi-scale aspects of tribology, materials characterisation (engineering and natural materials) and mechano-chemical interactions of materials interfaces used particularly for, but not limited to, biomedical applications.

Michael is currently developing research and teaching activities devoted to modern aspects of corrosion, tribology, surface science and applied biomechanics. This includes surface chemical effects in energy production, bio-tribology, bio-corrosion and methods of mitigation. His research is concerned with understanding and optimising the interactions occurring at interfaces commonly found in many applications. In particular, he is focussed on the development of advanced testing methodologies incorporating in-situ techniques to assess interfacial processes in real-time.

Michael has strong ties with industry, academic and regulatory (MHRA expert for tribology and corrosion) groups. A key aspect of Michaels work is translation of testing methodologies via ISO and ASTM. Michael’s research is currently funded as PI and Co-I through the EPSRC, Wellcome Trust, Royal Society, EU H2020 and Industry (more than £20m). He is a current Researcher in Residence Fellow at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, Sheffield and was awarded the IMechE Duncan Dowson Prize and Sir Thomas Hawksley gold medal in 2018.

Aleksander Cendrowicz

Aleksander Cendrowicz is Associate Professor of Digital Manufacturing (Ceramics) in the school of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham. He took up the post in 2023, following a career as a Technical Specialist working at Rolls-Royce in Turbine Systems.

He leads the Ceramics Forming Group, the focus of which is the development of novel manufacturing techniques, additive manufacturing, using instrumentation & data science for improving established processes, and the formulation of ceramic systems.

He is a member of the High Temperature Research Centre (HTRC), that is a partnership between the University of Birmingham and Rolls-Royce plc, which was recently recognised through the Queen’s Anniversary Prize. Within the school of Chemical Engineering, he is part of the Formulation Engineering theme that has a long-standing EPSRC and industry funded Centre for Doctoral Training.

Professor Andrew Morris is a theoretical spectroscopist, interested in modelling from first principles the spectra (eg NMR, EELS, XAS, Raman) seen in experiment. Andrew writes the Open Source OptaDOS scientific software program which has been used to aid fundamental characterization of materials worldwide. It is designed to be used by experimental groups and is freely available from GitHub.

Andrew develops crystal structure prediction techniques based on the ab initio random structure searching method to predict how atoms arrange themselves in crystalline and amorphous materials, and developed the WAM method for predicting the structure of framework materials, including MOFs, COFs etc.

Adam is an Assistant Professor of Physical Chemistry in the School of Chemistry, leading an interdisciplinary research team with the aim of understanding how to control chemical reactivity (usually in the solid state) using mechanical force. This includes using and developing atomistic simulation tools to understand mechanochemical reactivity, and a focus on studying mechanochemistry experimentally using international synchrotron and neutron facilities.