I am Professor of Chemical Engineering at University College London (UCL), Director of the Centre for CO2 Technology (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/centre-for-co2-technology/), and Director of the International Energy Policy Institute (IEPI), UCL Australia. My research expertise is founded on particle technology (I was a former Chair of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) Particle Technology Subject Group), with a focus on the minerals and pharmaceutical sectors. I have used this expertise to develop low carbon technologies and processes for the energy and chemical industries and was awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Global Research Fellowship to develop ideas on the open innovation of such technologies, spending time at University California, Berkeley (2009) and the University of Melbourne (2010). I have over 200 publications in books, journals and conference proceedings and am a member of the IChemE’s Education & Accreditation Forum.

Since 1994 I have been working with universities in Kazakhstan and Russia, developing modern chemical engineering degree curricula, and, as the first Dean of Engineering, was responsible for founding the School of Engineering at Nazarbayev University, the new international university in Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital city, of which UCL is the strategic partner for the Foundation Programme and Engineering. I spent 3 years working with NU establishing the School of Engineering, from concept through to the intake of its second student cohort. Completing my secondment to NU at the end of August 2012, I then joined UCL’s department in Adelaide, Australia, in September as the inaugural director of the IEPI and BHP Billiton Chair of Energy Policy, where I have introduced systems engineering into the policy development process.