We are delighted to announce that Professor Saiful Islam is to join St Anne’s College in January 2022 as a Fellow in Materials Science. He will at the same time take up a Professorship in the Department of Materials as the next Statutory Chair in Materials Modelling.
Professor Islam’s research interests are in modelling of materials process and structures at the atomistic scale, particularly in energy materials including batteries and solar cells. His work has generated deeper insight into conduction mechanisms and pathways for lithium ion transport in electrolytes for innovative solid-state battery technologies. He currently leads the CatMat project for the Faraday Institution where modelling is being used to help accelerate development of new battery technologies to improve performance of electronic vehicles.
Another significant research area for Professor Islam is in using simulation to understand the structure, stability and properties of the organo-lead halide perovskites for advanced solar-cell applications. Here the importance of studying lattice defects and their effect on transport properties are critical.
Professor Islam is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, and has been recognised with a number of research awards, including recently the 2020 American Chemistry Society Award in Energy Chemistry, and the 2017 Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Peter Day Award for Materials Chemistry. He has contributed to programmes at the Royal Society working on their Diversity Committee, and currently on their Public Engagement Committee.
Professor Islam has recently made a number of media appearances which you may have seen. He gave the prestigious Royal Institution Christmas Lecture ‘Supercharged – Fuelling the future‘ (on their 80th anniversary in 2016). He has also been featured as a ‘Life Scientific‘ and his discussion with Jim Al-Khalili on the BBC Radio 4 programme is a good way to get to hear about him ahead of January 2022.
We look forward to welcoming Professor Islam to Oxford and St Anne’s.