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HEAD OF THE GROUP: PROFESSOR JAWWAD A. DARR
Biography: Professor Jawwad Darr is the son of Pakistani immigrants from the Punjab who came to the UK in the 1960’s to work in Bradford West Yorkshire. Despite an unremarkable early education, he one of the UK’s leading industrially facing academics in advanced functional materials/nanomaterials process engineering, with the title of Professor of Materials Chemistry at University College London, UCL (world’s top 20 university). His short 2 page CV can be found here.
Hear about his academic/learning journey starting from school days to the present: podcast by Prof Siraj Shiekh as part of the "higher purpose" podcast series. Click here
He has published over 200 academic publications and three patents and has been awarded funding valued at over 20 million pounds and has graduated over 45 PhD students (as of 2021). From 2016 to 2021, he was vice dean of enterprise in the Maths and Physical Sciences faculty at UCL in, which he was supporting UCL’s faculty engagement with industry. He is visiting professor at Comsats University Islamabad (Lahore Campus) since 2008. He is a regular speaker at industrial forums and academic events in a wide range of topics. As well as his own latest research, he teaches on topics related to green chemistry, applications of advanced functional materials (including batteries) and at outreach lectures for (online and face to face) for schools/universities in the UK and Pakistan. In his spare time, he enjoys dabbling in interior design, reading about the origins of life and evolution, watching/playing football and electronic gadgets.
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In 2017, he co-founded the UPSIGN charity (UK-Pakistan Science and Innovation Global Network; www.upsign.org.uk) that works to support, educate and connect British Pakistani and Pakistani academics. In his UPSIGN work, he is involved in public outreach workshops and lectures, training Pakistani academics and students, and developing training and workshops to support underprivileged undergraduate black and minority Asian students in research.
Photo: 2020 Global Development Workshops in Islambad with UPSIGN and other team members
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