Dr Chris Allen is a Consultant in the Laser and Sheet Processes Section at TWI Ltd, and has over twenty years' experience as a welding engineer. He has an MA from Cambridge in Materials, and a PhD from Oxford, carried out in conjunction with Alcan. Following a short stint in academia, Chris has been in a technical project role since 2000, firstly at Corus, and then at TWI. Chris has developed, managed and delivered R&D projects, principally in laser processing, for clients in the aerospace, road transport, powergen, defence and shipbuilding industries, with clients including Rolls-Royce, GKN Aerospace, Saab Aerospace, Leonardo MW, ESA, Honda, Honeywell, JCB, Nippon Sharyo, UKAEA, Lockheed Martin, MBDA, Technip, Saipem, and the MoD/DSTL, as well as the European Commission and InnovateUK.