The University of Birmingham is one of the world’s leading higher education and research institutions and a member of the prestigious Russel Group of research-intensive UK Universities. UOB participates in the SUNBIO project through the School of Metallurgy and Materials. The UOB multi-disciplinary research team is led by Professor Mayorkinos Papaelias, Head of NDT and Condition Monitoring Group. Professor Papaelias is an internationally renowned renewable energy expert who has been involved as Technical or Scientific Coordinator in several high-profile national, industrial and EU projects. Professor Papaelias is the Technical Manager of the SUNBIO consortium and collaborates closely with the Project Coordinator, Dr Jacopo Aguzzi from CSIC. The UOB research team leads several critical tasks within the SUNBIO project working closely with all partners.
University of Birmingham team
Farzad Hayati
Farzad is an Assistant Professor in Opto-Electromechanical and PNT systems at the University of Birmingham with a strong practical engineering background in electronics and embedded systems. He has more than 20 years of experience in practical electronic engineering and field instruments both in industry and academia and currently collaborates closely with the UK National Quantum Technology Hub in Sensors and Timing and related industries in the field of quantum sensing.
Previously he was a lead research fellow in electromagnetic and low frequency non-destructive sensing at Sonar and Acoustics Research Group. He has a very strong practical engineering background in electronic and embedded systems design and development and his main expertise are in electronics, embedded systems, programming, condensed matter physics and nano-electronics. Over the past years he obtained several awards for his outstanding performance and is a holder of Sir William Siemens Medal. He is also a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), member of Institue of Physics and member of Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).
Gerard Franklyn Fernando
Gerard Franklyn Fernando holds the Chair of Polymer Engineering at the University of Birmingham, School of Metallurgy and Materials. After securing his PhD (Fatigue of hybrid composites) from the School of Materials Science, University of Bath, UK, he worked at the Water Research Centre, Swindon, UK. He then moved to the Materials Technology Department, Brunel University as a Lecturer in Polymer Chemistry. Prior to transferring to the University of Birmingham, he was a Reader at the Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University, UK. He leads the Sensors and Composites Group. Professor Fernando’s research interests are focused on (i) the clean processing of composites, (ii) development of low-cost optical fibre sensor systems for composites and (iii) electro-spinning of biopolymers.
Matthew Gee
Matthew Gee is a Ph.D. researcher and materials engineer at the University of Birmingham, specializing in Acoustic Emission monitoring and signal processing, amongst other Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) techniques. There is heavy utilization of data processing within this as well as assisting in future developments for digital twins of associated components and the integration of integrated on-line monitoring systems.
He is also working on additional European energy projects focusing on condition and structural health monitoring of composite materials, as well as similar work on engineering components outside of these projects.
Mayorkinos Papaelias
Professor Mayorkinos Papaelias (Ph.D. in Metallurgy, Chartered Engineer – Greece, Member of the Technical Chamber of Greece) holds the chair of NDT and Condition Monitoring in the School of Metallurgy and Materials at the University of Birmingham. He currently leads the NDT and Condition Monitoring Research Group. He has been involved as technical coordinator or scientific consultant in several FP6, FP7, H2020 and Horizon Europe collaborative research projects primarily focusing on renewable energy sources and transport. In addition to his work on European Commission funded research projects, Professor Papaelias has been funded by the EPSRC, the National Structural Integrity Research Centre, industry and UK government. He has authored or co-authored more than 170 journal and national and international conference papers in NDT and condition monitoring and has edited several books. He is a Member of the International Society for Condition Monitoring, currently chairing the Education Committee.
Sanaz Roshanmanesh
Dr Roshanmanesh is a Research Fellow in the School of Metallurgy and Materials of the University of Birmingham with multidisciplinary background. She has expertise in maths, signal processing, electronics, Satellite and Mobile communications, RF and microwave, remote sensing and non-destructive testing (NDT) as well as the wider field of Engineering.
Currently she works on several multi-disciplinary projects, collaborating with both NDT research group of the university and the UK National Quantum Hub in Sensing and Timing to push the boundaries of applied engineering and overcoming the engineering and RF challenges in these fields.