Strategic Advisory Board Members

The Strategic Advisory Board (SAB) provides links to partner stakeholders and advice and guidance on research directions, commercially valuable research and impact paths to the Director and Management Board. 

Biographies of the members of the SAB are given below:

Dr John Bagshaw CEng, CPhys, FInstP, FRAeS (Independent Technology Consultant)

Since 2015 John has worked as an independent consultant on the application of new technology in defence, aerospace and civil sectors. He is on the National Quantum Technology Programme Strategic Advisory Board, providing advice on the direction of the UK’s £1 billion programme. John is a founding member of the Institute of Physics Business, Innovation and Growth Group; and in 2020 was elected IOP’s Vice President for Business. From 2007-2010 he was Head of the Sensor Technology Department at BAE Systems, where he was later elected a Fellow and appointed Technology Executive. For 16 years he held senior positions in GEC Marconi where he led teams working on electro optics and radio frequency systems. John has strong insights into the challenges of taking research through to commercial exploitation and strengthening links between physics and industry.

He is a Chartered Engineer and Physicist, and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and Royal Aeronautical Society.

Dr Maria Ana Cataluna (Heriot-Watt University)

bio to come

Dr Ivona Z. Mitrovic (University of Liverpool)

Ivona Z. Mitrovic (PhD, MSc, BSc EE) is a Reader in sustainable nanoenergy at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics at the University of Liverpool. The principal goal of her research has been to further the fundamental understanding of materials on the nanoscale, in particular oxides, relevant to mainstream CMOS electronics applications and, more recently alternative energy technologies. She is a Senior Member of IEEE and has authored over 100 scientific papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings and has delivered over thirty talks at premier international conferences in Europe and the USA.

Prof Richard Penty FREng (University of Cambridge)

Richard is Professor of Photonics and Deputy Head of the School of Technology. His research interests include photonic integrated circuits, optical datacommunications, converged fibre-wireless systems and quantum communications.  He is a founder of spin out companies Zinwave, PervasID and eComm and a member of the Board of Directors of the Tyndall National Institute, Cork, and of the Search Committee for the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.

Professor Dominique Schreurs (KU Leuven)

Dominique M. M.-P. Schreurs (Fellow, IEEE) received the M.Sc. degree in electronic engineering and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Leuven, Belgium, in 1992 and 1997, respectively. She has been a Visiting Scientist with Agilent Technologies, Santa Rosa, CA, USA, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO, USA. She is currently a Full Professor with KU Leuven, where she is also the Chair of the Leuven ICT (the Leuven Centre on Information and Communication Technology). Her current research interests include the microwave and millimeter-wave characterization and modeling of transistors, nonlinear circuits, and bioliquids, and system design for wireless communications and biomedical applications.

Prof. Schreurs served as the President of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society from 2018 to 2019. She was an IEEE MTT-S Distinguished Microwave Lecturer. She has also served as the General Chair for the Spring Automatic RF Techniques Group (ARFTG) conferences in 2007, 2012, and 2018, and the President of the ARFTG organization from 2018 to 2019. She currently serves as the TPC Chair for the European Microwave Conference and also the Conference Co-Chair for the IEEE International Microwave Biomedical Conference. She was the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

Dr Andy Sellars (CSA Catapult)

Andy developed the business case and strategy for the £50m Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult, submitting it to HM Treasury in 2015. He led the Catapult start-up from 2017, representing the Catapult during roundtable discussions with the Prime Minister, and joining the Secretary of State during the GREAT Festival of Innovation in Hong Kong. Andy is regularly called as an expert witness to provide evidence to Parliamentary committees, most recently for the National Security and Investment Bill and the Telecom Security Bill. Andy joined the Catapult from Innovate UK, where he delivered £15m of strategic investments in electronics, smart materials and compound semiconductors. His early career was spent leading R&D teams with Rolls Royce, Spirent PLC and Abbott Diagnostics, and he was prime consultant on film and TV lighting for James Bond and Sky News.

Andy holds an Executive MBA from Glasgow University and a research doctorate from Strathclyde University.

Dr Carol Trager-Cowan (University of Strathclyde)

Carol Trager-Cowan is a Reader in the Department of Physics in the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Together with her research team and with collaborators from across the world, she works on new developments and novel applications of the scanning electron microscopy techniques of electron backscatter diffraction, electron channelling contrast imaging and cathodoluminescence imaging. She and her team combine these techniques to, rapidly and non-destructively, analyse the structural properties of materials and where they emit light, investigate the effect of structural defects on light emission. Materials presently under investigation include nitride semiconductors, WC-Co hardmetals and natural diamonds.