Industrial Advisory Board - IAB

The Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) represent a range of sectors and are composed of both industrial and academic members

Meet our IAB members

Dr Robin Attrill -  Independent Consultant

My background is Chemistry (undergraduate and PhD studies at Imperial College followed by a Post Doc at the University of Edinburgh). I subsequently went into the pharmaceutical industry at Beecham/SmithKline Beecham/GlaxoSmithKline where I spent 32 years working in, and leading, line and project teams working in Process Chemistry on the development of small molecule drug candidates. The project teams comprised multidisciplinary groups of chemists and chemical engineers. Throughout this period had a strong interest in experimental design, automation and data management, including electronic laboratory notebook deployment. I was also active in external chemistry activities, particularly Royal Society of Chemistry interest groups and the Dial-a-Molecule grand challenge.

Since October 2019 I have been working as a consultant at the industry/academia interface in various ways, including support for Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Data Science PhD students (with a focus on their technical, personal and career development) and developing opportunities for project funding. I also teach Organic Chemistry to Chemical Engineering undergraduates.
 

Dr Edward Close - Siemens Digital Industries Software

Dr. Edward Close is Bioprocess Modeling Competence Centre Director at Siemens Digital Industries Software, an innovation and technology leader in industrial automation and digitalization. He graduated from UCL with an MEng in Chemical Engineering in 2009, and then obtained an Engineering Doctorate in Biochemical Engineering, conducted at UCL in collaboration with Pfizer. He joined Process Systems Enterprise Ltd. (acquired by Siemens in 2019) as a product developer in 2013 and has subsequently held positions of increasing responsibility in product development and industry strategy. Edward is the main architect behind Siemens bioprocess digital twin offering and has over 12 years’ experience leading the development and application of Siemens Industry Software Solutions for mechanistic and hybrid modelling in the process industries.
 

Dr Warren Eagles - GSK

Dr Warren Eagles is a Process Engineering Team Leader within GSK, with over 18 years of experience in the development and scale up of processes to deliver Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). He was educated at Loughborough University where he gained a BEng, as well as completing a PhD and Post Doctoral studies in various areas of filtration. He then spent 5 years working within the Fluid Mixing Processes consortium at BHR, managing the gas-liquid and solid-liquid mixing research areas, as well as being involved in consultancy projects. In his time at GSK, Warren has worked across small molecules and oligonucleotides, batch and flow processes, including size reduction.
 

Jessica Guzzetta-King – io consulting

Jessica Guzzetta-King is a Principal Consultant in Safety & Risk and Study Manager at io consulting, with over 17 years of experience in the high-hazard energy industry. Her background spans oil and gas, carbon capture, hydrogen, sustainable fuels, and ammonia, with a focus on risk management, hazard identification, and safety strategy across concept and FEED stages.

Jessica began her career with a year in industry at BP, followed by roles at RPS Energy and Genesis, where she led technical scopes and supported graduate development. She has presented internationally on hydrogen risk modelling and continues to advocate for innovation and clarity in safety engineering.

In addition to her consulting work, Jessica is a guest lecturer at UCL and Middlesex University and has been a member of the UCL Chemical Engineering Industry Advisory Board since 2018. She is also actively involved in STEM outreach and mentoring, with a passion for engaging diverse audiences in engineering.
 

Prof Nick Hazel - UCL (formerly BP)

Nick Hazel did his first degree and his DPhil in Chemistry at Oxford, followed by 2 years post-doc at Bristol University. He then joined BP in Hull UK, where he spent his whole career in a wide variety of research roles. Importantly, he was also involved in graduate recruitment for a number of years and was trained in the latest company interview methods. Much of his career was spent bridging between disciplines, particularly Chemical Engineering through specialising in advanced reactor modelling and thermodynamics. He also spent a number of years following the EU air pollution techno-political processes, including shadowing the modelling done to support policy development. He authored several early LCA/LCI papers on industrial coatings applications mostly with the automotive industry.  Part of his last few years in BP was spent leading the company’s re-entry into molecular computation, through which he became involved with the London Universities and joined the Department’s IAB when it was formed. Nick took voluntary severance from BP in 2015 after 30 years, and was later appointed Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in Chemical Engineering at UCL, then after 3 years with the RAE, as a UCL Visiting Professor, and continues to serve on the IAB.
 

Dr Hermann Josef Feise - BASF

At BASF, Dr. Hermann J. Feise leads sustainability management for the battery materials business. He oversees sustainability strategy and reporting, and actively contributes to industry associations such as the Global Battery Alliance and ReCHARGE, which aim to foster a transparent and sustainable battery industry.
 
Previously, Dr. Feise worked in BASF’s Innovation Management, serving as a liaison for researchers from both academia and BASF’s research divisions. Prior to 2012, he led the Particle Formulation and Handling group within BASF's Chemical and Process Engineering department, providing expert services to BASF plants and laboratories.
 
His technical expertise includes drying, agglomeration, and particle handling, as well as the simulation of particle flow using modern numerical methods. From 2019 to 2022, Dr. Feise served as the President of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering.
 

Dr Andrew Kisiel - Retired (Formerly DAI)

Dr Andrew Kisiel holds a BSc and PhD in chemical engineering from Imperial College, London. Andrew also has a DIC in Statistics. His first job was with GEC Computers and Automation, working on early process control computer systems. When, after 2.5 years, he was offered the management of the software department, he left and joined an American Software House, Digital Applications Inc., to continue doing technical work. This lasted 2 years, after which he became the Executive VP of the small European operation, based in London. 1.5 years later Andrew was offered and bought the fledging European process control computer systems operation consisting of a group 6 people. 50 years on, Digital Application International (DAI) has grown into a company of 250 employees with five offices in the UK, Switzerland and China, working primarily in the supply chain, pharmaceuticals and energy. In March 2020 DAI was sold effectively to the US arm of a German listed company. At the time of sale, Andrew was the Chairman and still actively involved in the business. Since then Andrew has retired and continues to serve as a valued member of the Industry Advisory Board
 

Dr Ken Kroenlein - Citrine Informatics

Dr Kroenlein's work focuses on developing representations of scientific data in a computational context for use in statistical and physical modeling, with a particular emphasis on applying good software engineering practice to scientific software and data handling. His scientific domain expertise is rooted in combustion physics, with a concentration in thermophysical and thermochemical properties of chemical systems, reactive fluid mechanics and radiative heat transfer. Dr. Kroenlein is the Scientific Data Architect at Citrine Informatics, acting as the steward for their novel graph-based data model in their next-generation cloud platform. By adopting strongly data-driven methodologies, robust assignment of uncertainties and maintaining the network of provenance on all data, Citrine provides industrial partners with the information they need to understand in a quantifiable way how to innovate their product lines for today’s high performance, environmentally aware customer need.
 

Neha Solanki - Shell

Neha Solanki graduated from UCL with an MEng Chemical Engineering with Study Abroad in 2008. She has worked for over 15 years for Shell, mostly as a Process Engineer in different organisations varying from distillation for refining, gas to liquids, upstream operations in Gabon and currently with the chemicals technology development team in the Netherlands, initially working on the process design and transitioned to supporting the technology marketing and R&D for battery electrolyte solvents. On top of her role, she is also part of the Sustainability Ambassadors working team within the company. In her spare time, she loves to travel to new countries to learn new cultures, cooking/baking, enjoying the arts and exercising.
 

Hugh Stitt - Johnson Matthey

Professor Hugh Stitt is a Senior Research fellow with Johnson Matthey plc. A Chemical Engineer, he has over 35 years of experience in industrial research and development into reaction engineering and catalyst manufacture. He has specialised in reaction engineering and kinetics, fluid mixing and CFD, powder technology and DEM, process measurement and data-driven modelling. He has over 140 refereed publications, over 10 granted patents and an H-score ca.40.  Hugh is a Visiting Professor in Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham, a Chartered Engineer (CEng), a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (FIChemE) and of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng).
 

Dr David Thompsett - Johnson Matthey

Dr David Thompsett has a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Bath in 1987. He joined Johnson Matthey at their corporate Technology Centre (JMTC) in 1986 and initially worked on fuel cells. He has worked in and led teams in a wide range of research areas such as emission control, fuel cells and H2 generation and clean-up as well as competency areas of materials chemistry, characterisation and computational chemistry. Currently, he leads the emission control research group at JMTC, a group of 45 scientists and engineers spanning catalysis, reaction engineering and colloidal science activities.
 

Dr Ian McRobbie - Innospec

Dr Ian McRobbie joined Innospec Executive Team in January 2002 and was shortly appointed as the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology. Prior to this Ian had spent thirteen years as Technical Director of A H Marks and Company Ltd., a privately owned British chemical company operating in the agrochemical and speciality chemical markets. Ian has also held senior research and manufacturing roles for Seal Sands Chemical Co., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Hexcel Corporation in California and BTP plc, now part of Clariant.
Ian completed his PhD Synthetic Organic Chemist (University of Salford) with over 50 years of industrial experience including senior management responsibility for R&D, engineering, manufacturing and IP. He has vast experience of industrial chemicals and bioprocessing in numerous market sectors from oil/gas to fine chemicals, AgChem and Personal Care.
Ian is a member of various bodies including industry trade association scientific committees, EPSRC SATs, Chemistry Foresight Panels, University Advisory Boards as well as being the industrial supervisor for several dozen PhD students.
 

Dr Kurt VandenBussche - Honeywell Aerospace

Dr. Kurt VandenBussche is VP Engineering at Honeywell Aerospace, accountable for Technology Strategy and Innovation in Honeywell Aerospace's Corporate Technology Organization.  In this capacity, he oversees the development and implementation of AERO's long term technology strategies, its global academic and venture capital sponsored relationships and the Incubation Center activities.

He holds a Masters and PhD degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Ghent, Belgium. After an initial stint at Shell International Oil Co., he moved to Honeywell UOP, where he held a number of technical and managerial roles. He moved to the Honeywell Aerospace CTO organization in 2021.

Kurt is the author of some 20 scientific papers, has acted as guest editor for Wiley-VCH and holds over 100 US patents. He has served on the executive board of ISCRE, Inc. and AICHE's Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division. He also represents Honeywell Aerospace on the Board of the Arizona Technology Council.

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