Our Group
We are a group of curious people doing interdisciplinary research. We try new things and have fun!
Dr Yueting Sun
Associate Professor, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow
Yueting grew up in Shanghai, Chongming Island. He received a dual bachelor's degree in Automotive Engineering and Economics from Tsinghua University in 2010, followed by a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Tsinghua in 2015 (with Prof Yibing Li). He visited the University of California, San Diego as a research assistant in 2013-14 (with Prof Yu Qiao), and held the KC Wong Fellowship at the University of Oxford in 2016-18 (with Prof Jin-Chong Tan, Prof Clive Siviour) and a postdoc (with Prof Jin-Chong Tan) before he moved to Birmingham in Dec 2019 to take up the Lecturer position (UK Assistant Professor), and became Associate Professor in Aug 2023.
Yueting was recently awarded the prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship to pioneer the field of nanofluidic energy absorption of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs). He has an unusual multi-disciplinary experience, starting in vehicle safety and impact mechanics, and moving toward nanoporous materials. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), keen on transferrable skills development, research-intensive teaching, and interdisciplinary learning in education. He taught Advanced Vehicle Engineering and led Final Year Project (MEng) in 2021-22.
The Team
Titas Pramanik
Postdoc Research Fellow (2024-)
Titas joined the group from the City University of Hong Kong, where he worked as a postdoc with the "Innovation and Technology Fund Research Talent" award, after his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science. He is a crystallographer, with a research interest in correlating the structure-property relationship in materials for diverse applications.
Titas enjoys cooking, listening to music, singing, debating socio-political issues, cycling, going to pubs, and watching football matches.
Bitao Lu
Postdoc Research Fellow (2023-)
Bitao joined the group from Southwest University in China. His work is focused on developing functional materials for biomedical and mechanical applications.
Bitao is good at badminton.
Daniel S. Parsons
Postdoc Research Fellow (2023-)
Dan is a crystallographer working with us on a part-time basis, previously worked in Diamond Light Source.
Ali Siwji
Ph.D. Student (2023-)
Ali joined the group in 2022 to carry out his final year project on the Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar techniques, and staying in the group for his PhD in material response at high pressure and high rate. He is an expert in mechanical design.
Ali is passionate about NGO charities and sports.
Tahlia Palmer
Ph.D. Student (2023-)
Tahlia is based in Chemistry, supervised by Dr Adam Michalchuk. Her project is about mechanical strain in flexible crystals, as part of the CDT in topological design.
Tahlia enjoys baking banana bread, trying new foods, watching movies, and playing frisbee
Xiaochuan (David) Liu
Ph.D. Student (2023-)
Xiaochuan is a chemist with interest in polymer science. He is working on MOF composite synthesis and modification.
David is also an entrepreneur and a professional photographer!
Hebin Jiang
Ph.D. Student (2020-)
Hebin joined the group in 2020 after completing his master's degree from the University of Science and Technology of China. His project focuses on the dynamic mechanics and physical response of nanoporous materials under liquid intrusion.
Hebin likse travelling, watching movies, and singing.
Haixia Yin
Ph.D. Student (2021-)
Haixia joined the group in 2021 after completing his MSc from the University of Birmingham in Metallurgy & Materials. His project focuses on controllable nanoporous liquid intrusion materials and composite systems.
Haixia is a good tennis player.
Heting Xiao
Affiliated PhD Student (2021-)
Heting joined the group in 2021 as a visiting Ph.D. student from Central South University, China. She completed her master's degree in Vehicle Application Engineering at the same university in 2019. Her project focuses on experiments and macroscale simulation of nanofluidic energy absorption.
Peilin Zhang
Affiliated Ph.D. Student (2021-)
Peilin joined the group in 2021 as an affiliated member based at Tsinghua University, China. He completed his dual bachelor's degree in Automotive Engineering and Economics from Tsinghua in 2019 and an MSc in Automotive Engineering from RWTH Aachen University in 2020. His project focuses on the optical and mechanical properties of nanoparticle polymer composites.
Peilin likes various sports table tennis, billiards, fencing, archery, etc.
Final Year Project Students:
James Dunne
FYP Student (2020-21)
Hamad Khaled Mohamed Mustafa H
FYP Student (2020-21)
Ashley Kokil
FYP Student (2020-21)
Thomas Lidstone
FYP Student (2020-21)
Emma Howard
FYP Student (2020-21)
Shenmin Li
FYP Student (2020-21)
Daniel Carpenter
FYP Student (2021-22)
Kieran Robert Arber
FYP Student (2021-22)
Luke Hutson
FYP Student (2021-22)
Rianna Pollard
FYP Student (2021-22)
Tomas Brown
FYP Student (2021-22)
Ali Siwji
FYP Student (2021-22)
MSc Project Students:
Boyang Duan
MSc Student (2020)
Qi Wang
MSc Student (2020)
Rui Ge
MSc Student (2021)
Yanan Shi
MSc Student (2021)
Tong Lu
MSc Student (2022)
Suhail Aljineibi
MSc Student (2022)
Weiye Yan
MSc Student (2023)
Internship Students:
Stephanie Odeyemi
In2Science Student (2022)