About Ingenia

Faith Wainwright has spent much of her career at Arup, where she led multidisciplinary teams on iconic building projects with world-leading architects. She was also instrumental in establishing Arup University. 

She was President of the Institution of Structural Engineers in 2018, served as an industrial member of the civil engineering panels of the RAE2008 and REF2014 research assessment exercises, is a panel member for UKRI’s RED Fund, and a Trustee of the Ove Arup Foundation.

At the Royal Academy of Engineering, Faith has served on the Trustee Board, Membership Panel, Ingenious committee, and the Engineering Policy Centre Committee. She holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bath and is an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford.

Professor David Delpy originally trained as a physicist and following a short spell in industry, spent 35 years at University College London (UCL) specialising in the development of techniques for the physiological monitoring of patients, especially newborns. He is most well-known for his developments in NIR (near-infrared) spectroscopy and NIR imaging of oxygenation and metabolism in the brain.

After seven years as Research Vice Provost, he left UCL in 2007 to become the Chief Executive of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, stepping down in March 2014. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Medical Photonics UCL, Honorary Treasurer and Council member at the Institute of Physics and a member of the Home Office Science Advisory Council.

Ginny Clarke is Chair of the Rees Jeffreys Road Fund, which aims to foster improvements in the engineering, management, design and use of roads to deliver safer, more environmentally sensitive, more aesthetically pleasing and more enjoyable outcomes. She has worked in local and central government on a variety of road and transport projects specialising in standards for road bridges, network planning and project management. In 2001 she became the Chief Highway Engineer for the Highways Agency, responsible for road standards, safety and research. She was the UK’s First Delegate at the World Roads Association for six years. In 2014, as Strategy Director, Ginny took the lead in developing the first Road Investment Strategy and legislation for the new Highways England company.

Ginny is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In addition to being on Ingenia’s editorial board, she is a member of the Academy’s Membership Committee and Chair of the Transport and Mechanical Membership Selection Panel.

Professor Yulong Ding is the founding Chamberlain Chair of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham and Director of the Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage.

He invented liquid air energy storage technology and developed composite phase change materials for thermal energy storage. His work on passively cooled container technology has been on large-scale commercial demonstration for cold chain transportation applications. 

He has published over 450 technical papers and filed over 70+ patents.

Professor Ding was awarded the IChemE Clean Energy Medal and the IChemE Global Awards in three categories: energy, research project and outstanding achievement. He also received the Distinguished Energy Storage Individual Award at Beijing International Energy Storage and Expo; Research Chair in cryogenic energy storage from the Royal Academy of Engineering; and Energy and Environment Award and Technology and Innovation Grand Prix Award from The Engineer.

Kati Gastrow's passion lies in building diverse teams and diverse manufacturing systems, especially in this age of digitalisation.

Most recently, she was Global Engineering Manager for Robotics and Automation at Unilever, where she led the technology selection for automated guided vehicles and robotics in the manufacturing space. 

She received her electronic engineering degree from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, before joining petrochemical coal-to-liquid pioneer Sasol as control systems engineer. Following the successful delivery of projects, she moved into global consumer goods manufacturing with Procter & Gamble in Germany. Projects included designing manufacturing platforms for personal care products for European factories. She then joined Mars Wrigley Confectionery as a project manager for delivering food manufacturing projects.

In 2020, Kati was recognised as an Exemplar in The Manufacturer Top 100, celebrating leadership and commitment to manufacturing in the UK. She has served as a Council Member for the Women’s Engineering Society and engages with ambassador organisations to promote women in engineering. In addition, she is proud to give back to the engineering research community by serving as a member of the Engineering Strategic Advisory Team at the EPSRC. Kati gained her Engineering Chartership from the IET in 2018.

A Chartered Physicist and Chartered Environmentalist as well as a Chartered Engineer, Doug King brings a scientific approach and environmental sensitivity to the design of buildings.

He has been the engineer behind numerous groundbreaking buildings worldwide including: Sainsbury’s Greenwich; the Genzyme Centre in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Innovate Green Office in Leeds; and the UN EcoBuilding in Podgorica, Montenegro.

Doug writes and teaches widely on building physics and sustainability in the built environment.

Stuart Nathan has been writing about science, engineering and technology for over 30 years. He completed a degree in chemistry at the University of Nottingham in 1991, after struggling for a year with the maths content of a chemical engineering course and finally admitting defeat. After graduating he translated a hobby into a career by starting as editorial assistant at Chemistry and Industry magazine. His career then took him to Process Engineering magazine, and then to The Engineer, where he stayed for 15 years, nine of those as features editor, before going freelance.

Stuart enjoys reading and writing fiction set in the past and future, and has been an avid fan of fantasy and science fiction films, television and comics for as long as he can remember. Like many chemists, he is a keen cook and baker and makes a mean sourdough loaf. He has never outgrown his love of dinosaurs; his favourite is Alcedo atthis, descended from those that survived the extinction event and better known as the European kingfisher. He also plays in two quiz leagues, sings tenor in a non-religious choir, and can frequently be found haunting art galleries.

Dr Anna Ploszajski is an award-winning materials scientist, writer, presenter, podcaster, performer, trainer and storyteller based in London. She is a materials generalist, equally fascinated by merino wool as stainless steel, through all the wonderful metals, plastics, ceramics, glasses and natural substances that make up our material world.

Anna channels this passion by storytelling with materials on the screen, radio, stage and page; her first book, Handmade: A Scientist’s Search for Meaning Through Making, was released in May 2021. She has also been published by the Guardian, The Times Higher Education Supplement, and Materials World.

Anna can often be found London’s pub basements performing stand-up comedy about materials and making. She also frequents science festivals across the country entertaining families with demo-packed shows.

Having developed her own unique blend of autobiographical and technical science communication, Anna now trains professional scientists and engineers and school students in the art of scientific storytelling. She has won numerous prestigious industry awards for her work, including Young Engineer of the Year from the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Silver Medal from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. In 2019 Anna was runner-up in the Nesta Tipping Point Prize science writing competition, with a piece on 4D materials. 

In her spare time, Anna plays the trumpet in a funk and soul covers band called Don’t Freak Out and is an ultra-endurance open water swimmer; she swam the English Channel in July 2018. Oh, and it’s pronounced “Por-shy-ski”.