Scottish success in Young Persons Lecture Competition

Congratulations to Angus Coyne-Grell who was awarded third place in the finals of the UK Young Persons Lecture Competition organised by the Institute of Materials Minerals and Mining.

The finals took place on Thursday 21 May at the prestigious Armourers' Hall in London when representatives from each of the Institute's six UK "regions" competed to take away the trophy and go on to represent the UK at the world finals later this year.

The competition invites students and early‑career professionals (aged 18–28) to deliver a 15‑minute lecture on a materials, minerals, mining, packaging or wider engineering topic.  Angus' talk was entitled "Shifting Boundaries: Controlling grain structure in nickel-based superalloys without deformation" and described the formation of interphase precipitation in nickel alloys.

Angus was selected to represent Scotland at the UK finals following a Scottish competition held at the University of St Andrews on 25th February.  He currently works in the Advanced Forming Research Centre, a specialist centre within the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) 

2026 R W Thomson Prestige Lecture

The 2026 R W Thomson prestige lecture will be given by Dr Alan Partridge, Director of the Defence Materials Centre for Excellence (DMEx) on Tuesday 16th June at 6pm.

The title for this year's lecture is "The National Materials Innovation Strategy: Unlocking UK Economic Growth Through Materials Innovation".

The UK National Materials Innovation Strategy is a major blueprint designed to accelerate how advanced materials move from the laboratory to real-world industrial adoption.  Facilitated by the Henry Royce Institute (the UK's national centre for advanced materials research) and shaped by insights from over 2,000 experts across industry, academia, and government, the strategy addresses a critical vulnerability: the UK has world-class materials science research, but historically risks losing the race to commercialise those discoveries. 

Dr Alan Partridge is the Director of the Defence Materials Centre for Excellence (DMEx), a multi-million-pound UK research partnership specifically established to pioneer the next generation of advanced materials for defence and security applications.  DMEx is led by the Henry Royce Institute (headquartered at the University of Manchester).

The lecture will be delivered on-line using Microsoft Teams.  It is free of charge and open to all with an interest in engineering materials and related manufacturing technologies.  To attend the event, simply register here.

Materials Award for Industrial Design Project

As part of the student learning experience at the Department of Design, Manufacturing and Engineering Management (DMEM) at the University of Strathclyde, students undertake an Industrial Group Project.  For the past three years, the Scottish Association for Metals has awarded a prize for the best choice of industrial materials in the product design.

This year the materials prize was awarded to Team 16 which comprised Bekki Ballantyne, Megan McCann, Neve Orr, Alessandra Triscari and Mark Williams.  Their challenge was to enable a full length inspection of Sellafield Sealines' narrow single-access overflow drain line.  Their solution was to develop a pressurised soft robotic tube that advances through the pipes by eversion.  This would allow the inspection of narrow and curved geometries without rigid components.

Congratulations to Team 16!

SAM Council and Committees 2025/26

COUNCIL 

President:             Prof Brad Wynne

Vice-President:      Dr Tatyana Konkova

Hon Secretary:      Dr John Wilcox

Hon Treasurer:       Dr Neil Shearer

Council Members:  Prof Stuart Lyon

                            Dr Amir Siddiq

                            Prof Nadimul Faisal

                            Dr Faezeh Shalchy

                            Mr Chibuzor Nwanebu

                            Dr Alireza Valizadeh

                            Dr Logaheswari Muniraj

Younger member:  Mr Obey Suleyman

INVESTMENT COMMITTEE                    ENGAGEMENT COMMITTEE

Dr Norrie McPherson                                      Dr Tiziana Marrocco

Dr Salah Rahimi                                             Mr Obey Suleyman

Prof Bob Reuben                                            Dr Tatyana Konkova

Dr Neil Shearer                                               Prof Nadimul Faisal

Dr John Wilcox                                               Neil Shearer

                                                                        Dr Alireza Valizadeh

                                                                        Dr John Wilcox