Business, energy and industrial strategy
Business, energy and industrial strategies are a major focus for the University and for policy makers. These researchers are actively engaging with the policy process and would welcome further engagement from policy makers.

Professor of Strategic Elements and Materials Sustainability
Co-Director of the Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements and Critical Materials
Paul Anderson is Professor of Strategic Elements and Materials Sustainability and the Co-Director of the Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements and Critical Materials.
Paul has published close to 100 research papers in scientific journals as well as reviews, book chapters and patents in the fields of porous framework materials, nanowires and nanoparticles, and hydrogen storage materials. He ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 4447
- Email
- p.a.anderson@bham.ac.uk

Emeritus Professor of European Law
Anthony Arnull specialises in the law of the European Union. He worked at the European Court of Justice from 1989-92 and was Head of Birmingham Law School between 2006 and 2009. He was Acting Head of the College of Arts & Law at Birmingham from April to August 2015. Professor Arnull is the author of The General Principles of EEC Law and the Individual (Leicester University Press, 1990); The ...
- Email
- a.m.arnull@bham.ac.uk

Professor Kai Bongs was Director of the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing from 2014-2019 and Principal Investigator from 2019-2022. Professor Bongs helped to drive the translation of gravity sensors and ultra-precise clocks into technology and applications across a diverse number of sectors, including climate, communications, energy, transport and urban ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 8278
- Email
- k.bongs@bham.ac.uk

Emeritus Professor of Geotechnical Infrastructure Engineering
Nigel Cassidy has over 30 years’ academic and industrial experience in near-surface geophysics, geotechnical engineering and numerical modelling. His research focuses on the development of remote monitoring, modelling and inversion techniques to solve practical environmental and geo-engineering problems.
Nigel has published 70+ peer-reviewed international journal papers, articles and book ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 5146
- Email
- n.j.cassidy@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Communication Electrodynamics
College of Engineering and Physical Sciences Director of Research and Knowledge Transfer
Costas Constantinou is Professor of Communication Electrodynamics in the School of Engineering.
Costas has published over 150 research papers in scientific journals, international conferences and book chapters in a broad range of topics in the area of communications engineering that include optics, electromagnetic theory, electromagnetic scattering and diffraction, electromagnetic measurement, ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 4303 /0121 414 9225
- Email
- c.constantinou@bham.ac.uk

Professor in Law and Ethics
Professor Delacroix’s research focuses on the intersection between law and ethics, with a particular interest in habits and the infrastructure that molds our habits (data-reliant tools are an increasingly big part of that infrastructure).
She is considering the potential inherent in bottom-up Data Trusts as a way of reversing the current top-down, fire-brigade approach to ...
- Email
- s.delacroix@bham.ac.uk

Senior Lecturer in Regional and Local History
I am a social and regional historian with teaching and research interests in the history of the West Midlands region after 1700 and the history of ethnic minorities and anti-slavery. I am also Editor-in-Chief of the History West Midlands project.
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 415 8253
- Email
- m.m.dick@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Work and Employment Relations
Tony is Professor of Work and Employment Relations at Birmingham Business School. He is part of the Organisation, Work and Employment (OWE) group in the Department of Management. He joined Birmingham Business School in May 2018, from Bangor University. Tony has over twenty years of employment relations experience as an academic, researcher, and journalist in the UK and Republic of Ireland, ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 7702
- Email
- t.dobbins@bham.ac.uk

Associate Professor of Corpus-based Discourse Analysis
International Exchange Tutor
My work combines corpus linguistic and experimental methods with discourse analysis to study the linguistic factors at the heart of important societal issues such as trust, polarization and climate change.
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 415 8346
- Email
- m.fuoli@bham.ac.uk

Director of the High Temperature Research Centre
Professor of Manufacturing Technology
Professor Nick Green is a Professor in Manufacturing Technology and received his PhD in Metallurgy from the University of Cambridge. Nick's research interests revolve around processing structure and property relationships in shape casting for high performance applications.
Nick's research work spans fundamental characterisation of materials, solidification science, computational process ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 24 7664 7456
- Email
- n.r.green@bham.ac.uk

Associate Professor in Modern History
My main interest lies in post war Germany, the political, social and economic reconstruction of the country (including Allied occupation policy) against the backdrop of the Cold War.
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 5759
- Email
- a.gruenbacher@bham.ac.uk

Senior Expert Bioeconomy, Fraunhofer Umsicht
Emeritus Professor, University of Birmingham
In April 2021, Professor Andreas Hornung was appointed Emeritus Professor at the University of Birmingham.
Andreas Hornung holds 21 patents and has published more than 340 scientific publications to date.
The main strategic topic of Hornung’s work today is the development of decentralized power providing units combined with pyrolysis, gasification and digestion units – called the ...
- Telephone
- +49 9661 8155-500
- Email
- andreas.hornung@umsicht.fraunhofer.de

Professor of Procurement and Supply Management
Chris Lonsdale is Professor in Procurement and Supply Management. He has been at the Business School for nearly 30 years, during which time he has published widely in the management area, worked extensively with major organisations such as IBM, Rolls-Royce plc, NHS and Molson Coors and taught on degree programmes at all levels. His key interests are within the area of procurement and supply, ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 7593
- Email
- c.m.lonsdale.ieb@bham.ac.uk

Honorary Associate Professor
Dr Claire McIvor is a tort lawyer whose main research interests are: (i) liability for the acts of others (both vicarious and non-vicarious); (ii) public authority liability in negligence (particularly police liability), and more recently, (iii) legal applications of Epidemiology.
- Email
- c.mcivor@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Infrastructure Monitoring
Director of the National Buried Infrastructure Facility
Head of Enterprise, Engagement & Impact, School of Engineering
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 4182
- Email
- n.metje@bham.ac.uk

Chair in Contract Law
Professor Catherine Mitchell’s research and teaching centres mainly around Contract law and related subjects. She has published widely on different aspects of contract law and her work has been cited by the House of Lords, the Singapore Court of Appeal and by the Law Commissions of England and Scotland.
- Telephone
- 0121 414 6299
- Email
- c.e.mitchell@bham.ac.uk

Reader in Energy Systems and Policy
Fellow of the Institute for Global Innovation, Resilient Cities theme lead
Dr Jonathan Radcliffe is a Reader in Energy Systems and Policy, leading an interdisciplinary research team. His research interests are in energy system technology, policy and innovation, in particular the role of energy storage. He also leads the Resilient Cities theme of the Institute for Global Innovation, working with colleagues across the university to investigate the drivers of urban ...
- Email
- j.radcliffe@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Railway Systems
Deputy Head of School of Engineering
Director of the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education Lead for the UK Railway Research and Innovation Network
Clive is Professor of Railway Systems and Deputy Head of the School of Engineering at the University of Birmingham. He is Director of the University’s Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education, which has over 180 researchers. He works extensively with the railway industry and academia in Britain and overseas.
Clive leads a broad portfolio of research aimed at ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 4306
- Email
- c.roberts.20@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Geotechnical Engineering
Chris Rogers spent three years in the civil engineering industry, becoming a chartered engineer as a result of this practical experience, before returning to academia to research pipeline soil-structure interaction. He lectured at Nottingham and Loughborough Universities before taking up his current position at the University of Birmingham in 1998. His research portfolio is dominated ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 5066
- Email
- c.d.f.rogers@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Materials Chemistry
Co-Director of the Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage
Professor Peter R. Slater is Professor in Materials Chemistry at the University of Birmingham and Co-Director of the Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage. He has more than 30 years research experience in the area of solid state/materials chemistry, ranging from battery materials to solid oxide fuel cells. In these areas he has published more than 250 papers in scientific journals, and has written ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 8906
- Email
- p.r.slater@bham.ac.uk

Professor in Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Research
Director of the Centre of Doctoral Training (CDT) in Fuel Cells and their Fuels
Robert Steinberger-Wilckens is Professor for Fuel Cell and Hydrogen research in Chemical Engineering. He is director of the research Fuel Cell and Hydrogen group and the Centre for Doctoral Training Fuel Cells and their Fuels, which is run by the universities of Birmingham, Nottingham, and Loughborough, Imperial College, and University College of London.
He works and has worked in many areas ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 415 8169
- Email
- r.steinbergerwilckens@bham.ac.uk

Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor (Staffing)
Beale Professor of Civil Engineering
Professor Sterling has research interests in Fluid Dynamics, Wind Engineering and Water Engineering. His research in Water Engineering is mainly directed towards understanding and evaluating the conveyance capacity of rivers, while within the field of Wind Engineering he has carved out two distinct areas of research, namely the effect of wind on plants and the effects of extreme wind events. He ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 5065
- Email
- m.sterling@bham.ac.uk

Professor in Robotics
Professor Rustam Stolkin serves as the Chair in Robotics and Royal Society Industry Fellow in the School of Metallurgy and Materials. He leads the Extreme Robotics Lab (ERL), Europe's most prominent university research lab dedicated to nuclear and other extreme environment applications of advanced robotics and AI.
Rustam is an interdisciplinary engineer with diverse research interests, although ...
- Email
- r.stolkin@bham.ac.uk

Emeritus Professor, eXtended Realities (XR) & Human-Centred Design
I’m a Human Factors specialist (since 1980) and a “veteran” of the international Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality community (since 1987).
Having held a Chair in Interactive Multimedia Systems at the University of Birmingham between 2003 and 2019, I am now Emeritus Professor in eXtended Realities and Human-Centred Design and Director of the Human Interface Technologies Team.
...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)7740 858901
- Email
- r.j.stone@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Company Law in Context
Professor Talbot writes and teaches on company law and corporate governance from a law in context approach, with particular emphasis on the political economy of the company. She has written several books on company law and corporate governance in context as well as many scholarly articles. Her current research is concerned with the relationship between the company’s legal architecture and ...
- Telephone
- 0121 414 3631
- Email
- l.e.talbot@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Leadership and Enterprise Development
Director of the Centre for Women’s Enterprise, Leadership, Economy & Diversity (WE LEAD)
Director of Business Engagement
Kiran Trehan is Professor of Leadership and Enterprise Development at Birmingham Business School at the University of Birmingham. She is also Director of the Centre for Women’s Enterprise, Leadership, Economy & Diversity (WE LEAD), Director of Business Engagement and Head of subject group Entrepreneurship and Local Economy.
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 415 8244
- Email
- k.trehan@bham.ac.uk

Chair in Thermodynamics
School Director of Research and Knowledge Transfer
Athanasios Tsolakis is Professor of Thermodynamics and Director of Research and Knowledge Transfer for the School of Engineering. Thanos has published over 150 research papers in scientific journals and conference proceedings in the areas of fuels and fuel treatments, low carbon and carbon free energy carriers, combustion and vehicle emissions control technologies such as environmental ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 4170
- Email
- a.tsolakis@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Critical and Magnetic Materials
Co-Director of the Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements and Critical Materials
Professor Allan Walton has expertise in processing of permanent magnetic materials, solid state hydrogen storage materials, hydrogen processing of materials, coating technologies, hydrogen purification membranes and recycling of rare earth materials. Allan is Professor of Critical and Magnetic Materials and is the ex-chair of the UK Magnetics Society.
He has published over 35 papers in ...
- Telephone
- (+44) (0) 121 414 5195
- Email
- a.walton@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Casting Technology
Paul Withey is Professor of Casting Technology.
Paul joined academia in 2018 and in 2019 was awarded an EPSRC Manufacturing Fellowship. He is working with industry to deliver improved casting technology for a number of different applications.
Paul is also knowledgeable about the DeHavilland Comet investigation in the 1950s and has shared his enthusiasm both in talks and documentaries.
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 5174
- Email
- p.a.withey@bham.ac.uk

Interdisciplinary Professorial Fellow in Law, Ethics and Informatics
Karen Yeung joined Birmingham Law School and the University of Birmingham’s School of Computer Scienceas Interdisciplinary Professorial Fellow in Law, Ethics and Informatics in January 2018. Her research has been at the forefront of understanding the challenges associated with the regulation and governance of emerging technologies. Over the course of more than 25 years, she ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 6298
- Email
- k.yeung@bham.ac.uk

Chair in Electrical Power Systems
Director of Smart Grid, Birmingham Energy Institute
Co-Director, Birmingham Energy Storage Centre (sponsored by EPSRC)
Xiao-Ping Zhang is a Professor of Electrical Power Systems, Director of Smart Grid, Birmingham Energy Institute, and Co-Director of Birmingham Energy Storage Centre sponsored by UK, and Head of the Electrical Power & Control Systems Group
Professor Zhang has been conducting active research in the fields of Energy Union, Global Power & Energy Internet, Super Power ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 4298
- Email
- x.p.zhang@bham.ac.uk