Surface Engineering and Advanced Coatings Event

Dr Melissa Riley is a Consultant within TWI’s Metallurgy, Corrosion and Surfacing team and has >25 years experience in surface engineering with 22 years of service at TWI. She has worked on a wide range of projects for TWI’s Industrial Members relating to the development and application of thermal spray coatings, and other coating technologies. Prior to joining TWI she worked on PVD and CVD coating technologies for orthopaedic applications.

Her work has included application and performance evaluation of wear and corrosion resistant coatings, ceramic coatings, bearing materials and more novel coatings and applications, including leading TWI’s work on the development of coatings on composites. Melissa has also led TWI’s thermal spraying and coating evaluation capability development over the last 15 years, including installation of thermal spraying systems, surface profilometry equipment, and erosion test facilities, along with the creation of a (£0.5M) large scale coating facility (LSF) which now houses TWI’s cold spraying systems and thermal spray coatings at scale. This is supported by robot offline programming capability to support upscaling and manufacturing development.

Melissa is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and Fellow of The Welding Institute. She also sits on the Management Committee for the UK Thermal Spraying and Surface Engineering Association (TSSEA), which issues the Code of Practice for Thermal Spraying, and also BSI STI/040 Thermal Spraying and Thermally Sprayed Coatings Committee.

Dr Ben Robinson joined TWI as a Project Leader in 2015, becoming a Section Manager of the Surface, Corrosion and Interface Engineering (SCI) team in 2024. Ben’s technical focus is coating systems for improved functionality with experience in thermal spray, cold spray, electroplating and conversion coatings. Ben has worked with TWI Industrial Members to develop and evaluated coating systems across a range of industry sectors including defence, aerospace, renewable energy, Oil & Gas, rail, automotive and nuclear.

Paul joined the Materials Department at TWI in 1992, having graduated and gained a doctorate from the University of Cambridge. He specialises in failure avoidance of welded structures, particularly microstructural effects, defect formation and approaches to avoidance of hydrogen embrittlement in service. In 2005, he became Head of the Materials Department and was appointed to the Board of TWI in 2010. He is a member of the UK Technical Advisory Group on Structural Integrity (TAGSI) and a non-executive director of the International Institute of Welding.

Philip attended the University of Sheffield from 2005 until 2009, where he obtained his masters degree in Metallurgy. During his time at University, he spent two summers working at TWI Yorkshire as a summer placement student, working primarily with the laser deposition equipment.

In 2009, Philip enrolled on the Engineering Doctorate scheme with the University of Birmingham, studying crack formation in laser deposited CM247LC. During these four years he worked in the TWI Yorkshire lasers department. 

In 2013, Philip began as a project leader with the surfacing group, working on the cold spray system at TWI Yorkshire.

Shiladitya joined TWI in 2008 after a PhD in Materials Science and Metallurgy from the University of Cambridge, UK, and subsequently became the Director of MatIC in January 2018. He is an innovative technology specialist with experience in the industrial development and application of specialised materials, coatings, and corrosion mitigation methods. He has published over 150 papers/articles on materials, coatings and corrosion. Shiladitya is active in the scientific community as a peer reviewer and member of the editorial team for several journals, and on a number of international, scientific and industrial committees, including holding the positions of Vice Chair of the European Federation of Corrosion (WP9), Chair of the 2023/24 symposium on Thermal and Cold Spray Coatings at AMPP Annual Conference, and a member, and judge, of the Journal of Thermal Spray Technology (JTST), Best Paper Award committee. He is a registered Chartered Engineer (CEng) in the UK, and a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM). 

Tomaso Maccio is a Project Engineer and Laboratories Manager specialising in Additive Manufacturing repair and coatings at based at TWI Yorkshire. Tomaso spearheaded TWI’s first Extreme High-Speed Laser Application (EHLA) project in 2022 and has been working in additive manufacturing since 2012. Currently, Tomaso is leading the EU-funded COMPASS project, which focuses on developing solutions to combat corrosion in geothermal environments.

Alan is a Technology Fellow at TWI specialising in the characterisation of functional surfaces with a focus on durable repellent coatings. Over 30 years he has led over 200 industrial projects covering every sector.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. He is a board member of the Surface Engineering Leadership Forum; is an expert reviewer for the EC; the EPSRC Future Leader Fellowship Scheme and has reviewed proposals for the Royal Society. His current interests centre on supporting industry to navigate through the changing environment related to regulatory compliance for coating and surfacing technologies.

Dr Dibakor Boruah is a Senior Project Leader at TWI Ltd, Cambridge, UK. Dibakor's journey with TWI began in 2017 through the NSIRC programme, where he pursued his PhD, focusing on the structural integrity of cold spray-deposited Ti6Al4V alloy for repair and additive manufacturing applications. After completing his PhD, Dibakor expanded his expertise at Ghent University in 2020, where he was a leading researcher on multiple collaborative projects related to wire+arc additive manufacturing, funded by the EU and local governments. Returning to TWI's surface engineering team in 2022, Dibakor brought with him over seven years of industry-led research experience in materials engineering and advanced manufacturing. 

At TWI, Dibakor served as the Technical Manager for the EU-funded collaborative project FORGE and currently leads the CSAM ODS projects funded by UKAEA FIP Cycle 2, and the Joint Industry Project: Industrialisation of Cold Spray Repair. In addition, he continues to spearhead and contribute to various projects related to cold spray, thermal spray processes, and materials characterisation.

Kranthi is a Senior Project Leader-Technology in Surface Corrosion and Interface (SCI) Engineering. With a PhD in Chemical Engineering from IIT Madras, India, and extensive industry experience, he specializes in developing products and processes from lab to industrial scale. His areas of expertise include REACH-compliant surface treatments, anodization, coating deposition technologies such as electrodeposition, sol-gel,  ionic liquids, corrosion, and fuel cells. Kranthi holds 3 patents and has published over 15 papers. A recipient of prestigious awards like the Marie Curie Fellowship, he is a Chartered Scientist (CSci), Chartered Engineer (CEng), and an active member of RSC, IET, IST and contributor to the scientific community.

Feifei graduated with a PhD in Engineering Science from University of Southampton and has over 10 years of research experience in Materials Science. She joined TWI in 2018 as a Project Leader, and has led various collaborative and single client projects. Her main research interest lies in the development of surface coatings for a range of industrial applications, especially focused on improving materials’ erosion, corrosion and wear resistance.

Feifei is now also a technical coordinator for the Geo-Drill Project (Horizon2020).