BIOHAVIOUR - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Member of the Biohaviour Team
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Declan obtained his Masters and PhD from Queen's in 2008 and 2013 respectively. As well as his research background working on projects such as the European Commission CRESCENDO project, he has a cumulative six years of experience in industry working for Michelin Tyre, Williams F1 and B/E Aerospace. It is in these roles that he gained first hand experience of the limitations of current design technologies, particularly with respect to new and emerging manufacturing technologies. In early 2017 he joined the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Queen's as a Lecturer. His research interests include design and analysis systems, next generation aircraft and certification by analysis. He is excited to be part of the Biohaviour investigative team, developing approaches which will revolutionise the way we approach product development.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Biohaviour Team
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Imelda graduated with a PhD from the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 2018, having previously completed a Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering in 2014. Imelda's PhD research focused on improving computer-aided design (CAD) practice from a manufacturing perspective, creating a novel CAD-neutral methodology which allowed the creation of variational geometry alongside nominal models within a CAD assembly environment. This permitted a truer representation of manufacturing conditions and analysis of their effects on the assembly within the simulation environment, to bridge the gap between commercial CAD software and early stage design for manufacture. Having returned to the School as a Research Fellow she is liaising with the Biohaviour team to understand and capture the technologies of this exciting engineering design concept whilst working on another research project within the School.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Biohaviour Team
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Peter Kilpatrick's research interests lie in the areas of cloud computing and programming models for parallel programming. He is the author of approximately 120 peer reviewed research papers. He has been Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on a number of European and UK funded projects and has held Visiting Researcher positions at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Munich, Germany, and at the University of Pisa, Italy. He is a former Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Engineering, Queen's University Belfast.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Biohaviour Team
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Róisín graduated from Queen's University Belfast in 2012 and 2016 with a Masters and PhD from the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering respectively. Róisín has a strong interest in automated computer-aided design systems and design for manufacturing and cost. Her PhD research focused on the development of an immersive virtual reality environment integrated with an automated design framework to eliminate the gaps between current engineering design platforms and immersive VR functionalities to improve organisational learning. Róisín has returned to the university as a research fellow after three years in industry where she worked for a product cost management software company, aPriori, identifying and codifying the primary and secondary manufacturing cost drivers using the geometric properties to produce cost quotes. Currently, she is working alongside the Biohaviour team on the EPSRC funded project ACCEPT Transitions, focusing on encapsulating strategies to create products that minimise waste, or are suited to using recycled materials where the materials may change from product generation to generation.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Biohaviour Team
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Mark graduated from Queen's University Belfast with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering and a Masters in Engineering Computation. He would later return to QUB to undertake his PhD in the School of Mechanical Engineering. In these early years, Mark honed his skillset by gaining invaluable experience at companies such as Short Brothers (now Bombardier Aerospace) and FEGS Ltd (now Transcendata Europe). With a desire to teach at his alma mater, Mark returned to QUB to lecture on aircraft structures, building a strong repertoire of work and methods in the analysis and design automation for airframes. His accomplishments were recognised when he was awarded the Thomas Hawksley Gold Medal from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers for his work on friction stir welding in airframe design. Since returning to QUB, he has published over 200 articles, supervised 25 PhDs, obtained substantial grants from major national and international collaborative programmes, as well as holding the roles of Head of Teaching for Aeronautical Engineering and Head of the School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering for four years. He has been involved in many national and international advisory bodies, including the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Astronautics Aircraft Design Technical Committee, and is currently a member of the EPSRC Strategic Advisory Team for Manufacturing the Future. Mark holds guest professorships in Chongqing and Tianjin Universities in China. Trevor graduated from Queen's University Belfast with a Masters and PhD from the School of Mechanical Engineering. He has been an investigator on a range of projects linked to the aerospace and automobile sectors which have received funding through EPSRC, the European Commission and Innovate UK. Trevor's active research interests include Automated Computer-Aided Design systems. He conducts leading research into geometry methods for integrating Computer-Aided Design and Analysis systems. He is also interested in exploiting the concept of Simulation Intent and parameterisation strategies and mesh generation. Currently a Senior Lecturer at QUB's School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering spearheading the Mechanical Engineering undergraduate programme, Trevor also leads the School's Engineering Leadership Programme. He has supervised 17 PhDs.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Biohaviour Team
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Vincent obtained his PhD from Queen's School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 2020, having previously graduated with a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2015. Vincent's PhD research investigated the impact design and manufacturing decisions have on product quality and cost. He developed a methodology to relate variation to cost in a multistage production system. This revealed the interdependencies between each stage in a production chain, allowing them to be assessed holistically to minimise the overall production cost. In addition to his research, Vincent has gained experience through several industrial roles. He completed a placement as a vehicle design engineer at Red Bull F1 during their championship winning years of 2012 and 2013. He has also worked in aircraft maintenance management as a CAMO engineer at Celairion in Austria, and most recently as a process engineer at Brett Martin. In summer 2021 he joined the Biohaviour team as a research fellow as part of the Re-imagining engineering design project.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Biohaviour Team
• View Research

Stephen has recently graduated with a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from Queen's University Belfast and has begun his PhD within the Biohaviour team. During his degree he also had underwent a placement at Whale Pumps, where he was involved as a design engineer. He has always had an interest in new and developing technologies, coming runner-up Queen's Entrepreneur of the Year for helping to advance some of these. While in industry he was involved in 3D printing techniques and services, experimenting with Rapid Prototype Tooling and other new ideas for rethinking manufacture and design. Currently Stephen's work is focused on the autonomous growth of the system, looking to nature's techniques for inspiration, and he is excited to see what emergent possibilities will come out of Biohaviour.