Saiful Islam is Professor of Materials Chemistry at the University of Bath, having previously completed a Chemistry degree and PhD at University College London, a postdoctoral fellowship on oxide superconductors at the Eastman Kodak Labs in Rochester, New York, USA, and a lectureship at the University of Surrey. His research interests include computer modelling of new materials for lithium and sodium batteries, solid oxide fuel cells and perovskite solar cells.
Saiful has had a long association with the Ri. He grew up in Crouch End, London, overlooking Alexandra Palace, the site of the first BBC television broadcast of the CHRISTMAS LECTURES on 22 December 1936. He also attended talks in the Ri’s famous theatre by another Christmas Lecturer, George Porter, while still at school and returned to present his own schools lecture on superconductors a few years after his PhD under Sir Richard Catlow, the then Director of the Davy Faraday Research Laboratory at the Royal Institution.
Saiful’s research is supported by the EPSRC, and he has received several awards including the Wolfson Research Merit Award from the Royal Society and the Sustainable Energy Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry. He has presented more than 60 invited talks at international conferences, and has around 180 publications.
He sits on the Diversity Committee of the Royal Society and is a member of the British Humanist Association.
