Lectures and Seminars
Degree-course lecture lists are published termly under Teaching section of this website.
Materials Colloquia
Research seminar series organised by the Department of Materials
Thursdays 4pm Hume-Rothery Lecture Theatre.
The dates of the confirmed colloquia for 2024 - 2025 are:
Michaelmas Term 2024:
Week 3 (31 October 2024) - to be confirmed.
Week 4 (7 November 2024) Dr K G Pradeep (Indian Institute of Technology Madras) - title to be confirmed.
Week 6 (21 November 2024) Dr Francesco D'Acierno (Imperial College, London): 'From Waste to Wealth: Upcycling into Functional Materials'.
Week 8 (3 December 2024) Professor Richard Spontak (North Carolina State University): 'Advances in thermoplastic elastomers: bringing self-networking polymers into the 21st century'. (NB: day of the week change - this is a Tuesday).
Hilary Term 2025
Week 1 (23 January 2025) Professor Thomas Pardoen (Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering (iMMC)): 'Ultimate Fracture Toughness through Thickness Engineering' (a working title).
Week 3 (6 February 2025) Dr Jacqueline Edge (Imperial College, London) - title to be confirmed
Week 6 (27 February 2025) Dr Greg Mazur (Oxford Materials).
Week 8 (13 March 2025) Dr Florian Bouville (Imperial College, London) - title to be confirmed.
Trinity Term 2025
In addition there are numerous seminars by visiting researchers advertised via email.
Archive of the most recent biennial public lectures hosted by the department
Hirsch Lecture: Friday 12 January 2024: Professor Anthony J. Ryan OBE
Image kindly provided by Professor Ryan, OBE
We were delighted that Professor Anthony J. Ryan OBE, of the University of Sheffield was able to speak to us about his exciting and innovative research.
Title: Neofossils: bio-based plastics to sequester CO2.
Abstract: 'We have recently been focussed on a circular economy for polymers, but came to the conclusion that we need to turn the problem on its head. Make more single-use plastic, but using C fixed by photosynthesis taken from the atmosphere this year, not millennia ago. Neo-carbon, not fossil-carbon, to make into plastic and keep it safe - through incorporation in our infrastructure or through curated burial.
Bio-based plastics from agricultural waste become sustainable when produced using renewable energy, not the current mix of >70% fossil energy. Life cycle assessment can identify the tipping point, as the energy system defossilises, when making durable, bio-based plastics makes sense. COP27 aimed to 'keep 1.5 oC alive' by removing 12 billion tonnes of CO2 per year (>25% of current emissions), yet there are no scalable technologies to do this.
Plastics consumption could be a good thing, maintaining the environmental benefits of plastic (eg reduced food waste). The petrochemicals industry could continue to benefit from its capital assets, leaving the oil underground, with a new income stream from carbon sequestration. We could use durable (ie nondegradable) bioplastics to sequester carbon, taking CO2 out of the atmosphere, and we could bury that plastic. In fact, if we converted all the current 300 million tonnes of annual plastic production to non-degradable, fossil-identical, bioplastics, using 100% renewable energy and agricultural waste as the feedstock, we would be able to remove 1 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere every year.
I will present the evidence to support a new plastics economy to deliver neofossils and remove CO2 from the atmosphere'.
This lecture was held on Friday, 12 January 2024.
Hume-Rothery Lecture 2023
Title: 'Multicomponent High-Entropy Cantor Alloys'.
Professor Brian Cantor.
Oxford University and the Brunel Centre for Advanced Solidification Technology (BCAST) Brunel University,
This lecture was held on Friday 21 April 2023.
Hirsch Lecture 2022
Title: 'From Batteries to Solar Cells: Exploring Energy Materials on the Atomic Scale' .
Professor Saiful Islam FRSC FIMMM.
Chair of Materials Modelling, University of Oxford
This lecture was held on Friday 14 January 2022.
Panopto recording (requires an Oxford account log-on) https://ox.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=c93a81b8-bda8-4d74-8919-ae1500d17ed6.
Hume-Rothery Lecture 2021
Title: 'Microscopy and Magnetic Materials: Exploring Energy Landscapes at the Nanoscale'
Professor Amanda Petford-Long FREng.
Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University.
This lecture was held on Friday 15 January 2021.
Hirsch Lecture 2019
Title: Triboreacted materials as functional interfaces in internal combustion engines and medical implants
Professor Anne Neville OBE, FREng, FRS, FRSE
RAEng Chair in Emerging Technologies, and Professor of Tribology and Surface Engineering, University of Leeds
This lecture was held on Friday 8 February 2019.
Hume-Rothery Lecture 2018
Title: Damage-tolerance in engineering and biological materials
Professor Robert O. Richie FREng, ForMemRS.
Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Departments of Materials Science & Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, University of California Berkeley.
This lecture was held on Wednesday 24th January 2018.
Other Seminar Series in Oxford
Additional seminar series of interest organised elsewhere in the university include:
