Carbon negative: understanding net zero in challenging times

Paul joined the Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC) in February 2014 as the knowledge exchange fellow for oil and gas. He has an engineering degree with honours from Loughborough University. Paul initially worked in research for aerospace as a corrosion engineer before moving to the oil and gas industry, where he has spent the majority of his career working for Pipeline Technip and Heerema Marine Contractors as the lead coatings engineer in subsea pipeline installations.

Since joining the AFRC, he has led the development of a one-stop-shop for industry to: engage effectively with the High Value Manufacturing Catapult; access the latest industrial scale manufacturing equipment; collaborate with leading experts in academia, research organisations and technology innovators.

Dr Ijomah is member of National and International committees established to assist industry to meet international environmental legislation, for example, TDW/004/0-/05 Design for MADE BSI and WRAP’s technical Advisory Group (TAG). Including current projects, she has been actively involved in over 17 practical industry-focused remanufacturing research projects. She is initiator and Editor-in-Chief of Springer’s Journal of Remanufacturing, the first academic journal in remanufacturing. She initiated and chaired the first International Conference on Remanufacturing (ICoR), again a first in the field.

She established and heads the University of Strathclyde remanufacturing research group. This is the UK’s largest remanufacturing research group. She is working with key EU and Chinese research institutions to develop strategies and techniques to enhance global remanufacturing. She initiated, developed and teaches MSc classes on remanufacture and sustainable Design and Manufacture. She undertakes knowledge transfer to industry, academia and government.

Dr Ijomah is a member of various National and International technical committees that advise research grants awarding bodies, including the UK Electronics Manufacturing Peer College (EMPC) which judges  the merits of research proposals submitted to the UK’s Innovative electronics Manufacturing Research Centre.

Overseas she is one of four International experts invited by MISTRA, The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, to assist them by proposing in detail the orientation of new research programmes in remanufacture. She is a founding member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society technical committee on sustainable production and service and part of the Editorial board of the academic Journal “China Surface Engineering”.

Dr. Andreas Reimer’s (CEng MIMechE) background and expertise is in forming, machining and additive manufacturing.  He concluded his EngD (Engineering Doctorate) in optimising the surface integrity for precision dies in machining by developing neural networks and genetic algorithms.  He also has a bachelor and two master’s degrees in engineering.

Currently, he is a manufacturing engineer leading the remanufacturing testbed theme and related projects. This includes development and integration of new technologies and machines in the centre, as well as the development of new research proposals / projects.

Before working on machining, additive manufacturing and remanufacturing, he developed his expertise as researcher on flow forming processes and process consultancy at the University of Magdeburg.