Leonardo Centre for Tribology

Academic Staff

Professor Rob Dwyer-Joyce BSc, PhD, CEng, FIMechE
Head of Mechanical Engineering

Rob Dwyer-Joyce is Professor of Lubrication Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He has a first degree in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College and a PhD in Tribology. After graduating he worked for British Gas in the Petroleum Production Division and offshore on the Rough gas field. Rob joined the Department in 1994; he manages the Tribology group that specialises in industrial wear and lubrication problems, and the development of metrology tools for tribology. Rob is a member of the IMechE Tribology Group, STLE, and a board member of The IMechE Journal of Tribology and Lubrication Science.

Professor Allan Matthews BSc, PhD, CEng, FIMMM, FIMechE, FIEE, FIMF
Head of Materials Engineering and Science

Allan Matthews joined the Department at the beginning of 2003, having spent the previous 21 years at Hull University, where he was Director of the Research Centre in Surface Engineering. He spent his early career in the UK aerospace industry. He is co-author of Coatings Tribology (Elsevier) and several other books. He has also published over 300 refereed papers, and is listed as a 'Highly Cited" researcher on the ISI Web of KnowledgeSM on-line platform. He currently holds eleven patents (eight granted and three pending). He is Editor of the journal Surface and Coatings Technology.

Professor Steve Franklin BSc, PhD, MInstPPhD
Visiting Industrial Professor, Tribology and Human Tissue Interaction

Steve Franklin is Chief Technologist in Tribology and Human Tissue Interaction at Philips Applied Technologies in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. He has a B.Sc. in Physics and Materials Engineering from Sheffield Hallam University and a Ph.D. in Metallurgy from Loughborough University. After a short time as a lecturer in Materials Engineering at Loughborough University, Steve moved to the Netherlands to join Philips Electronics and since 1989 has worked at Philips Applied Technologies, a contract R&D organisation serving the whole of Philips and a number of companies outside of Philips. At Philips Applied Technologies, Steve manages the Tribology and Human Tissue Interaction teams, concentrating on applied research and product pre-development. Steve was appointed Visiting Industrial Professor in both the Engineering Materials and Mechanical Engineering departments at the University of Sheffield in November 2008, and is a member of the steering committee of the Leonardo Centre of Tribology and Surface Technology.

Professor Mark Rainforth BMet, PhD, FIMMM, CEng, FInstP, CPhys, FRMS
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering

After obtaining a 1st Class Honours degree from the University of Sheffield, Mark Rainforth initially followed an industrial career. He later joined the Department from the University of Leeds in 1989 and rapidly established state-of-the-art facilities in electron microscopy and tribology. He is co-author of the book `Ceramic Microstructures´ with W E Lee, a winner of the Rosenhain Medal of the IoM3 and has just finished his term as President of the Royal Microscopical Society.

Professor Beverley Inkson MA, PhD

Beverley Inkson joined the department in 2002, moving from The University of Oxford as a Royal Society URF in Nanomechanics. She is a Reader in Nanostructured Materials, Director of the RCUK Basic Technology programme in Nanorobotics and Chair of the UK NanoFIB network.
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Dr Roger Lewis MEng, PhD, CEng, FIMechE
Reader

Roger Lewis became a lecturer in the Department in 2002, was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2006 and to Reader in 2012. He graduated from the University of Sheffield in 1996 with an MEng in Mechanical Engineering and continued to work at Sheffield towards a PhD in the Tribology Research Group. He then had posts as a Research Associate and Teaching Fellow in the Department.

 

In 2001 he was awarded the Tribology Trust Bronze Medal and in 2003 received a Brian Mercer Award for Innovation from the Royal Society. He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He is currently a member of the IMechE Tribology Group and Railway Division Young Members committees.

David Fletcher

Dr David Fletcher BEng, PhD
Senior Lecturer

Dr Fletcher's research interests are in engineering design and performance of materials under extreme loading. He is a graduate of Leeds University and was awarded a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Sheffield. Dr Fletcher has collaborated with the Japanese Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI), Tokyo, on modelling crack growth in rail steel, and has conduced research on EU and industrially funded projects with partners including Corus, DeltaRail, Tubelines and the Rail Safety and Standards Board. EPSRC funded research includes the area of Resilient Design, developing approaches to the design of crowded places that may be subject to terrorist attack. Research prizes have included the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Tribology Trust, Tribology Bronze Medal, 2000, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Railway Division, TA Steward-Dyer / F H Trevithick Prize, 2005, and a Best Paper prize at the World Congress on Railway Research, Korea, 2008.

Dr Adrian Leyland MA, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Surface Technology

Adrian Leyland is an Honours Graduate of Leeds University (BSc, Materials Science & Engineering, 1985), who joined the Department at the beginning of 2003, having spent the previous 17 years at Hull University, where he obtained his PhD in Plasma Surface Engineering in 1992, from the group of Professor Allan Matthews. He subsequently worked as an Investment Research Fellow in the Research Centre in Surface Engineering at Hull, and as a Lecturer in the Department of Engineering. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Elsevier Journal Vacuum, and Treasurer of the Ion and Plasma Surface Interactions (IPSI) Committee in the Applied Physics & Technology division of the Institute of Physics.

 

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Dr Matt Marshall MEng, PhD, AMIMechE
Lecturer

Matt Marshall is a Lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sheffield. He first graduated from the Departments MEng program in 2002, before moving on to complete a PhD in Tribology in 2005. Upon completion of his studies he moved on to work as a Project Manager at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), a flag ship collaboration between the University, leading aerospace manufacturing companies and key government agencies, before returning to Mechanical Engineering as a Lecturer at the end of 2008. He was awarded the IMechE Tribology Bronze Medal in 2005 for the research undertaken during his PhD, and also has several prize winning papers.

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Dr Tom Slatter MEng, PhD, AMIMechE
Lecturer

Dr Tom Slatter graduated from the University of Sheffield in 2004 with an MEng in Mechanical Engineering and in 2010 with a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. During this time he worked for the Ford Motor Company in Powertrain CAE and diesel engine engineering, and his PhD was sponsored by the Ford Advanced Research and Materials Group in Aachen, Germany. His PhD concerned the wear of automotive valvetrain components. In 2007, Tom became a University Teaching Associate and then in 2011 was awarded a lectureship in Mechanical Engineering.Recent research interests have expanded into 'big tribology' with projects investigating the tribological design of large machines for Siemens VAI and the tribology of gear machining for Tata Steel (Europe). He also continues to be involved in automotive research investigating the cryogenic treatment of components and on valvetrain design.