Professor Clive Siviour announced as Department’s new Professor of Materials Engineering

Professor Clive Siviour has been appointed as the Department’s new Professor of Materials Engineering, effective from 1 August. This post was previously held by Professor Alan Cocks, who retired in September 2022. Professor Siviour moved to Oxford in October 2005 from the University of Cambridge, and was appointed to his current Professorial position in October 2008. He was also recently announced as the next Head of Department, from September 2024.

The Solid Mechanics and Materials Engineering Group, in which Professor Siviour works, is one of the largest groups in the Department. Research in Solid Mechanics has a long tradition in Oxford, all the way back to Hooke’s pioneering work on the elasticity of springs. As part of the Department’s strategic plan, Professor Siviour will be aiming to expand the position of the group as a centre of excellence for research and teaching in Solid Mechanics and Materials Engineering, and to take further advantage of the opportunities afforded for cross-disciplinary activities of the Department of Engineering Science.

The Department’s research in Materials Engineering is highly interdisciplinary and centres on the behaviour of novel structural and functional materials for a wide range of technological applications. Current strengths in the group include fatigue and fracture, impact and shock, micromechanics and computational modelling, with relevance to a wide range of materials and applications including aerospace, energy, healthcare and defence.

Professor Siviour has a particular interest in the development of novel experimental techniques for understanding the behaviour of materials under high speed deformations that are experienced during impact, and more recently in sustainable materials for impact protection.  His group has investigated aerospace alloys, polymers and natural materials such as silk, collaborating with leading researchers in relevant fields.

Former Head of Department Professor Ron Roy says "Professor Siviour has been a key contributor to a very broad range of research and administrative activity in the department, most recently through his role as a leader of the solid mechanics panel and a prime mover in the implementation of our estates strategies."

"Assuming the post of Professor of Materials Engineering serves to underscore his eminence in the field and the significance of his contributions to the panel and the Department as a whole. It is a large and diverse panel, and I can think of no person better suited to lead it -- be it by knowledge, skill, or temperament -- than Clive."