Plenary Speakers

Dr Richard Storey

Richard is a pharmacist who completed his PhD in crystallisation and materials science in 1997 at the University of Bradford. He then moved to the supercritical fluid crystallisation SME “Bradford Particle Design” investigating the potential applications of this new technologies. In 1998 He moved to Pfizer Global R&D and worked on solid form selection of new pharmaceutical molecules with a specific focus on the use of high throughput screening of solid forms. In 2003 Richard moved to AstraZeneca in Macclesfield where he has held roles in both management and scientific areas in solid state selection and materials science with a specific focus on the role of material properties on process performance. Richard is also the treasurer and board member of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Great Britain.

Professor Zhigang Sun

Zhigang Sun is a Senior Review Chemist at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) based in Washington D.C. He previously worked as Senior Development Scientist at Malvern Instruments and obtained his PhD from Purdue University in 2001. In his current position he is a Drug reviewer at The Office of Generic Drugs (OGD), CDER, FDA. He focuses on the chemistry, manufacturing, and control (CMC) review function for Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs); and is a member of the OGD working group on Quality by Design (QbD). His expertise is in Design and Development of Techniques for PAT applications; Particle Characterization of powders and dispersions. He is a member of AIChE Pharma Open Forum and American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists.

Prof Kevin W Powers

Kevin is the Associate Director of the Particle Engineering Research Center of the University of Florida. He has a B.S. in Chemistry and Physics from the United States Air Force Academy; a Master of Science in Inorganic Chemistry from Michigan State University; and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Florida. His research Interests include: synthesis of high aspect ratio nanomaterials, characterization of nanomaterials, bioactive powders, nanocomposites for catalysts, toxicology of nanostructured materials, solgel synthesis and composites, size reduction to the nanoscale (nanomilling) as well as nanotoxicology.

Dr Vincent Hackley

Vincent is a Research Chemist in the Ceramics Division - Nanomechanical Properties Group at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) USA. He graduated in 1983 with a B.S. in Chemistry from State University of New York and Syracuse University. He achieved his Ph.D. in Water Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, in 1991 and has been at NIST since then. He won the Department of Commerce Silver Medal in 2008 and is the NIST Expert designate to The International Standards Organisation. His outputs on standards include:

• Gold Nanoparticle Reference Materials 8011, 8012, and 8013.
• Positive Electrophoretic Mobility Standard Reference Material 1980.
• Size Measurement of Nanoparticles Using DLS (Assay Protocol PCC-1.)
• Size Measurement of Nanoparticles Using Atomic Force Microscopy (Assay Protocol PCC-6).

His research interests include:

• Physico-chemical property measurements, standards, and data for nanomaterials under development in biomedical applications such as cancer therapeutics (in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute - Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory).
• Standards and reference materials to enable assessment of the potential hazards associated with the manufacture and application of engineered nanomaterials.
• Application of optical, x-ray, and neutron scattering techniques to characterize the nanoscale-to-microscale structure of materials.
• Interfacial and dispersion properties of nanoscale particles in aqueous media.

Professor Matthias Thommes

Matthias Thommes received his PhD in Physical Chemistry with Prof. G.H. Findenegg at Ruhr University Bochum (1989-1991) and Technical University Berlin (1992/93). From 1992- 1995, Dr Thommes was a Research Associate at the Iwan-N.-Stranski Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, Technical University Berlin and Project Scientist for a microgravity experiment on critical adsorption which was carried out on the EURECA mission of the European Space Agency (ESA). From 1996 to 1997, he was an ESA fellow and Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Institute for Physical Science and Technology at the University of Maryland at College Park, USA. In 1998 Dr Thommes joined Quantachrome, first as the Head of the Application Department at Quantachrome GmbH in Germany, and then since 2001 as Director of Applied Science at the Quantachrome Headquarters in Boynton Beach, Florida, USA. Dr Thommes’s research interests are in the textural characterization of advanced micro/mesoporous materials and thin porous films; and in adsorption and phase behaviour (e.g., pore condensation, hysteresis) of wetting and nonwetting fluids confined to novel nanoporous model materials. Dr Thommes is a Taskforce Member of the IUPAC (International Union for Pure & Applied Chemistry), project Liquid Intrusion and alternative methods for the characterizations of macroporous solids. In 2006 he was elected as a council member of the International Mesoporous Materials Association (IMMA).

Professor Jan Cilliers

Jan Cilliers is Professor of Mineral Processing in the Royal School of Mines at Imperial College London. He is also Director of the Rio Tinto Centre for Advanced Mineral Recovery, which was established in 2008 to develop new technologies in block caving, leaching and flotation. After studying Minerals Engineering, and working both underground and above on the South African gold and platinum mines, he did his PhD in Cape Town. He moved to the UK in 1993, where he established his flotation research team, uniquely specialising in the role of the froth. His research develops complex physical models and measurement techniques to improve mineral separations. In 2010 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of both The Institution of Chemical Engineers and the Institute of Materials, Mining and Metallurgy.

Professor Stefano Brandani

Prof. Brandani received a Laurea summa cum laude in Chemical Engineering from the University of L'Aquila in 1991 and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Naples in 1995. From September 1994 he was a Lecturer at the University of L'Aquila, Italy. Between 1994 and 1998 he was a visiting scholar at the University of New Brunswick, Canada and the University of Maine, USA. He joined University College London in 1998 as a Senior Lecturer and then became a Professor of Chemical Engineering. He is now the Chair of Chemical Engineering and Director of Research at Edinburgh University. Whilst in London he was a co-Director of the Centre for CO2 Technology and is the recipient of a Philip Leverhulme Prize and a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award. He is a member of the Board of International Adsorption Society and a member of the AIChE. His research Interests include: investigating the use of different separation options to tackle the removal of CO2 from flue gasses: iIn particular Pressure Swing Adsorption processes run at fast cycle times; the fundamentals of mass transfer in microporous solids; characterisation of equilibrium and transport properties in adsorbents (typically carried out using the Zero Length Column method); phase equilibria; fluidization in biomass gasification and the effect of particle size distribution on the properties of fluidized beds.