Who are we

Chair
Swansea University
hari.arora@swansea.ac.uk

Associate Professor Hari Arora has been on the committee since 2016 and works on characterisation across length and time scales including high-rate events (blast and ballistics). He has worked on protective structures (materials); and injury, health, and disease with a focus on soft tissues (biomechanics). Hari is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Swansea University. He previously worked in the Bioengineering and Mechanical Engineering Departments at Imperial College London, the latter where he also obtained his MEng and PhD.

He has experience across a range of measurement techniques with specific interests in digital image/volume correlation, microscale testing and measurements in extreme environments (e.g. blast).

Outside interests include travel, cooking, most sport and painting (occasionally more than just speckles). 

Message from Chair 

Secretary
GOM UK 
r.wood@gom.com

Rob Wood is a sales engineer for GOM UK. With a degree in Automotive Engineering from Loughborough University he went on to work in roles in test and measurement. As an application engineer he worked with nCode strain analysis and fatigue software before becoming involved with optical strain measurements and Digital Image Correlation (DIC) in 2007. Working across 2 DIC suppliers he has many years’ experience of applications and measurements in this area at both academic and industrial levels.

After working in Derby, Sheffield, Detroit and Bristol Rob now lives in Somerset with his wife and 2 children.

Treasurer
BSSM
jdl602@gmail.com

A former Chair of the Society and committee member for over 15 years, Jerry worked for almost 30 years in the Materials Centre at NPL after completing a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Leeds University.

He has relevant interest and experience in many aspects of materials testing and strain measurement, but specifically in strain gauging, DIC, modulus measurement, microscale testing, FIB and residual stress measurement.

Outside interest include cycling, walking, photography, music, sport and Burnley FC.   

Chair of CONFCO
University of Glasgow
Daniel.Mulvihill@glasgow.ac.uk

Daniel is Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Glasgow and a member of the Materials and Manufacturing Research Group. He completed his PhD in 2012 at the University of Oxford. Before joining Glasgow in 2016, he was Irish Government Research Fellow at the University of Limerick, visiting researcher at EPFL Switzerland and Research Associate at the University of Cambridge.  His research interests include experimental mechanics, tribology, contact mechanics, composite materials and aerospace alloys. He is a member of the BSSM SATCO committee since 2016 and is presently Co-Chair of the CONFCO committee which oversees the planning of the society’s key conference events. He chaired the Postgraduate Experimental Mechanics (PGEM) conference at Glasgow in Dec 2018.

Cerco Chair
ian_j_jones@blueyonder.co.uk

Ian has been the Chair of the certification committee and the Chief Examiner for strain gauge certification for the British Society for Strain Measurement (BSSM) for over 20 years. Ian is also a member of the BSSM’s National Council, Natco.

Retiring in June 2021 after working in the Aerospace industry for over 35 years, he was involved in the design and testing of all the Airbus aircraft programs including the latter days of Concorde. As the Advanced Metrology Methods Expert, he focused on Experimental Mechanics strain and displacement measurements and was responsible for the measurement technologies deployed within the Airbus Test centres.

SATCO Chair and Past Chair
Techni Measure
chair@bssm.org

Since graduating from the University of Southampton with MEng Aeronautics & Astronautics, Andrew spent 14 years involved in the design and test of rotary wing aircraft at what is currently named Leonardo Helicopters. For the last 5 years Andrew has been a Director of Techni Measure Ltd, supporting UK industry with the supply and installation of strain gauges and many other types of sensors for test & measurement applications and it is in this role that Andrew became involved in BSSM. Whilst mainly experienced in bonded resistance and fibre optic strain gauges, Andrew has an ardent interest and fast growing knowledge in all methods of strain measurement. BSSM is a strong part of Andrew’s heritage since his grandfather Frank Ramage and father Ian Ramage have both been involved with the Society since its foundation in 1964.

Outside of his professional career Andrew enjoys raising his three young daughters and, when he gets the chance, surfing, mountain biking, whitewater kayaking or snowboarding.

Committee Member and Past SaATCO Chair
NPL
michael.gower@npl.co.uk

Mike is a principal research scientist and science area leader for Materials Testing within the Advanced Materials Characterisation team at the National Physical Laboratory. Mike is responsible for the development of metrology to underpin the use of composites as multifunctional materials to enable optimisation of the processing and in-service performance of composite structures.

He has 24 years of experience in mechanical testing and strain measurement, physical analysis, characterisation, non-destructive testing and finite element analysis of composite materials. Mike holds a degree in Aeronautical Engineering and an MSc in Composite Materials from Imperial College.

Past Chair
LaVisionUK Ltd
dhollis@lavision.com

A committee member since 2007, Dave has served as Society and SaTCo Chair. Having completed a PhD in Aeronautical Engineering at Loughborough University, he has been with LaVision since 2005 and has the current position of Technical Director of the UK business. Dave also has responsibility for the materials testing products for LaVision globally and significant experience with Digital Image and Volume Correlation.  That experience has been gained across a wide range of applications including high speed testing, testing at the microscale, high temperature tests, and the use of X-ray CT imaging.

Past Chair
The Open University
salih.gungor@open.ac.uk

Past Chair of BSSM and a committee member since 2011, Salih is a senior lecturer in Materials Engineering at The Open University, where he produces and presents courses in mechanics, materials engineering, nuclear energy and structural integrity of materials and structures. Before joining The Open University, he has worked in several post-doctoral projects at the Universities of Sheffield and Oxford. Salih has over 25 years of research experience in applying optically-based experimental methods for characterizing in-situ behaviour of materials and structures. His current interests include the application of DIC for strain measurement in high temperature tests, in particular for the characterisation of creep behaviour of weldments.

Past Chair
BSSM
judithshackleton@compuserve.com

Judith Shackleton, CEng. CSci. received an MSc from the University of Aston in 1984 and has worked in the field of X-ray crystallography for over 40 years. She has been working in the field of residual stress measurement for the last 20 years. She retired from full time work in the Civil Large Engines Division of Rolls-Royce plc in December 2020 where she was responsible for most of their X-ray diffraction analysis, principally the measurement of residual stress.

She has worked in both Industry and academia including, Lucas Industries, Philips Analytical (now Panalytical), The University of Manchester Department of Materials Science and finally Rolls-Royce. Her principal interests include all diffraction based methods of residual stress measurement primarily those based on laboratory X-ray sources. Although now retired she retains an active interest in the field.

Committee Member
University of Oxford
james.marrow@materials.ox.ac.uk

Prof. James Marrow is the James Martin Professor in Energy Materials at Oxford University. His research is focussed on microstructural fracture mechanics and the application of in-situ methods to study damage and crack fields, for which he received the Fellowship of the European Structural Integrity Society in 2014.  He is  particularly interested in the application of µXCT to validate multi-scale modelling in quasi-brittle materials, using strain measurement by digital volume correlation, and X-ray and neutron diffraction.  

He obtained his degree (Natural Sciences) and PhD at Cambridge University in 1988 and 1991, with postdoctoral studies at Oxford and Birmingham Universities, before taking a lecturership at Manchester.  He moved to Oxford in 2010 and is a fellow of Mansfield College.

Committee Member
University of Bristol
nicolas.larrosa@bristol.ac.uk

Dr Nicolas Larrosa is a Lecturer in Structural Integrity (SI) at the University of Bristol (UoB). His background is in Mechanical Engineering with rich experience in developing and integrating novel modelling capabilities with damage models for structural integrity analysis and life assessment.  He completed his PhD in 2012 at the Universidad de Sevilla (Spain) in microstructural fracture mechanics focused on modelling the effect of the material microstructure and the size and shape of the component on small fatigue crack propagation  After completing his PhD, Nicolas was then appointed as a Senior Research Associate (RA) in Structural Integrity at The University of Manchester (UoM), funded by BP and EDF energy. With 25 publication in high impact journal, Dr Larrosa is a point of reference internationally in fracture mechanics and fatigue and developing a leadership reputation in corrosion fatigue. 

Nicolas is originally from Argentina, a football lover and a huge fan of River Plate Club.

Committee Member
University of Rennes

After several years as a research engineer in the Total group, Prof. Jean-Benoît Le Cam received his PhD from Ecole Centrale de Nantes in 2005 and has since worked on fatigue damage and fracture mechanisms in elastomers. In 2006, he joined the academic staff of the French Institute of Advanced Mechanics (IFMA) as an Assistant Professor, where he worked on imaging techniques to study mechanics of elastomers. In 2010, he was appointed director of the Structures and Mechanics of Materials department at IFMA. In this period, he has extended his research field to quantitative calorimetry in mechanics of elastomers. In 2011, he joined the Institute of Physics at University of Rennes 1 (UR1) as a Professor in order to create the Quantitative Imaging Group on mechanics of elastomers.

Today, he holds the Cooper Standard Chair in mechanics of elastomers at UR1 and manages the Research Laboratory (LC-DRIME) in Imaging, Mechanics and Elastomers, common to Cooper Standard, UR and the National Centre for Scientific Research. His industrial partners belong to various sectors of engineering: automotive (Michelin), oil pumping (PCM) and anti-vibration systems (Cooper Standard), to name a few.

Committee Member
Queen Mary University of London
haibao.liu@qmul.ac.uk

Dr Haibao Liu is a Lecturer at the School of Engineering and Materials Science at Queen Mary University of London. He completed his PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Queen's University Belfast in 2018. Prior to his current role, he was a Research Associate at Imperial College London and a Lecturer in Aerospace Structures at Cranfield University.

Haibao's research focuses on assessing the performance of textiles and composites for structural applications. His research has earned him several recognitions, including the Excellent Paper Awards from the International Conference on Lightweight Materials and Manufacture (2019) and the Bronze Award of Written Paper Prizes from the Royal Aeronautical Society (2019). Additionally, He serves as the Assistant Editor of the International Journal of Lightweight Materials and Manufacture.

Society Manager
amandaboaler@bssm.org 

Amanda has been Society Manager for the BSSM since September 2013.  Amanda is responsible for the day to day running of the Society including, membership applications, planning and facilitating the annual conference, workshops and seminars, invoicing and general enquiries.

Previously, Amanda has worked in both the scientific and commercial sector, as a participant and as an event co-ordinator.

Marketing Manager & Webmaster
bianagale@bssm.org

Working with the BSSM since 2005, Biana is a Marketing professional with a wealth of experience spanning sectors as broad as automotive and aerospace through to the hospitality industry and the NHS. Experience covers the full marketing arena working through the line on all project types whether digital, print or social media.

Qualified to Masters level, Biana’s responsibilities at the BSSM include production of all marketing and PR material as well as creation and management of all CRM and online activity.

Committee Member & CERCO Instructor
Strain Solutions Ltd
richard.greene@strainsolutions.com

Richard is the Managing Director of Strain Solutions Ltd, a small UK-based consultancy company which offers full field strain measurement capability around the world using techniques including digital image correlation, thermoelastic stress analysis and photoelastic stress analysis, alongside point sensors such as strain gauges and thermocouples.

He has previously served on NATCO, is currently a member of CERCO, and delivers strain gauge installation courses and seminars on behalf of the society, mostly at levels 2 and 3 of the certification scheme. 

Committee Member & CERCO Instructor
Vishay Measurements Group UK Ltd
Anton.Chittey@VPGSensors.com

Anton has worked with strain gauges for more than 30 years. In that time he has repaired and calibrated instrumentation, installed gauges and captured data on a variety of materials in many environments, including bone for evolutionary biology investigation, a hydroelectric power station, sea trials for a missile system, vehicle testing on a well-known test track etc.  

Presenting training workshops has been a key part of his career including those on behalf of the BSSM. He has been a member of BSSM’s CERCO committee for several years which includes the role of examiner for the strain gauge installation certification scheme.  

CERCO Committee Member & Instructor
Quantify bv / Strain Academy
philippe.zwaenepoel@quantifybv.be

Philippe is the managing director of Quantify, a small business based in Belgium, specialising in distributing test and measurement equipment and strain gauges from VPG Micro Measurements. He has been assisting and advising customers on their strain gauge installations since 2012. Philippe has also founded The Strain Academy, bringing workshops based on the BSSM Code of Practice to the BeNeLux market and giving guest lectures in Universities and Schools to introduce students to the world of strain measurements.

Presenting training workshops has been a key part of his career and has been the foundation to setting up The Strain Academy.
He is the newest member of the CERCO committee and will be promoting the BSSM Code of Practice and certification scheme, and being multi-lingual, this includes being the local examiner in this region.