Mark Miodownik

Professor Mark Miodownik is the UCL Professor of Materials & Society. He received his Ph.D in turbine jet engine alloys from Oxford University in 1996, and has worked as a materials engineer in the USA, Ireland and the UK. For more than twenty years he has championed materials research that links the arts and humanities to medicine, engineering and materials science. This culminated in the establishment of the UCL Institute of Making where he is Director and runs the research programme (www.instituteofmaking.org.uk). Mark also recently set up the Plastic Waste Innovation Hub to carry our research into solving the environmental catastrophe of plastic waste dealing with topics such as biodegradable plastics and product reuse and repairability. As a broadcaster and writer he is internationally known for championing engineering and materials science: his TV programmes such as How It Works have reached millions of viewers globally; he is the author of Stuff Matters, a New York Times Best Selling book, which won the Royal Society Winton Prize in 2014 and the US National Academies Communication Award in 2015. In 2014 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2015 he was awarded the American Association for the Advancement of Science Prize for Public Engagement with Science. In 2017 he was awarded the Faraday Medal by the Royal Society. He is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2018 he was awarded an MBE for services to materials science, engineering and broadcasting. In 2022 he awarded the Thornton Medal from Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.