Author: Sanjana Kakar

PostDoc Spotlight: Tamas Zagyva, NSAN Postgraduate of the Year Finalist

Understanding how materials used in nuclear environments react to extreme conditions is key to their safe use.

Meet Tamas Zagyva, Research Associate at the Department of Materials, Imperial College London. His research looks at how neutron shielding materials behave under radiation and heat, and he was recently named a finalist for the National Skills Academy for NuclearPostgraduate of the Year Award.

We asked Tamas a few questions about his journey – read on to find out more.

Cross-section of an ion-irradiated tungsten boride shielding material (bright-field transmission electron microscope image, left). The ion-damaged region is limited to the top ~2 µm of the surface. The corresponding diffraction patterns (right) indicate significant radiation-induced microstrain and displacement damage in the crystal structure.

  • Can you tell us a bit about your background and what led you to pursue your postgraduate studies in Materials/Nuclear?

I did my undergraduate studies in Earth Science with a geology specialisation. I realised quite early on that mineralogy and crystallography were the fields I was most interested in, but I also found that I could learn much more about material structures and properties by continuing with a master’s degree in materials science. After that, I continued with a PhD focusing on radiation effects in nuclear waste materials, which felt like an obvious choice given the strong links to both geology and materials science. My PhD and postdoctoral research are quite similar, as both focus on understanding how materials behave under radiation.

  • How would you describe your research in a few sentences for someone outside your field?

At Imperial, I study how the structure of neutron shielding materials changes under extreme conditions. These materials are used to protect radiation-sensitive components in nuclear reactors from neutron damage, but they also need to remain stable at high temperatures and under intense radiation. In our group, we simulate these conditions by bombarding materials with ions at different temperatures. The information we get from these experiments helps us choose the most promising shielding materials and improve them further.

Cross-section of an ion-irradiated tungsten boride shielding material (bright-field transmission electron microscope image, left). The ion-damaged region is limited to the top ~2 µm of the surface. The corresponding diffraction patterns (right) indicate significant radiation-induced microstrain and displacement damage in the crystal structure.
  • What’s the most exciting part of your work?

The most exciting part for me is analysing materials after irradiation experiments. Every material behaves differently, and often in unexpected ways. It’s fascinating that, using advanced techniques, we can observe how materials change at the atomic scale after radiation exposure.

  • Have there been any unexpected findings or challenges along the way?

The biggest challenge is that ion irradiation only damages a very thin surface layer of the material. This damaged region is usually only about 1–2 micrometres thick, which is roughly 50 times thinner than a human hair. To analyse this layer, we need to handle the samples very carefully and use advanced sample-preparation and characterisation techniques, such as grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy.

  • Do you have any advice for other postgraduates aiming to make an impact in their field?

My main advice would be to work on something you’re genuinely passionate about. It makes a huge difference. I’d also encourage people to step outside their comfort zone. For me, that included approaching senior researchers at conferences, taking part in competitions, and getting involved in outreach activities. These experiences were challenging at times, but they were very rewarding and helped me move forward in my career.

  • Who has been the biggest influence or mentor in your journey so far?

I’ve been lucky to be surrounded by many great mentors, so it’s hard to name just one. During my undergraduate studies in Hungary, I conducted research under the supervision of Gabriella B. Kiss, which I enjoyed so much that it significantly influenced my decision to pursue an academic career. I later wrote my undergraduate thesis under István Dódony’s supervision, who encouraged me to choose a topic I was genuinely interested in and further strengthened my passion for crystallography. During my master’s research, supervised by Katalin Balázsi and Csaba Balázsi on bioceramic materials, I enjoyed both the work and the research environment so much that I decided to continue in materials science.

  • How did you feel when you found out you were selected as a finalist? What does this recognition mean to you personally and professionally? 

Being a finalist feels great because it shows that the work I’ve done at Imperial over the past few years has made an impact and is being recognised by the industry. More importantly, it reflects how well our team works together under Sam Humphry-Baker’s supervision. Designing and coordinating ion irradiation experiments is complex, but doing this at a high level was only possible because of the support I received from Sam and the excellent work of the students involved in these campaigns.

Racing into Engineering: Ellie’s Summer at Alpine F1

This week on our Imperial Materials blog, we’re featuring Ellie Abel, our MEng student who spent her summer as a Stress/Structures Intern with Alpine Formula One Racing. She shares her experiences working on high-performance car components, performing simulations, testing, and even developing tools to streamline engineering processes.

Over the summer, I had the opportunity to join Alpine Formula One Racing as a Stress/Structures Intern. It was an incredible experience through which I had some exciting opportunities: contributing to both the 2025 and 2026 cars, working alongside incredibly kind and talented engineers, meeting the drivers, and exploring the beautiful scenery the Cotswolds had to offer. Although the environment was fast-paced, demanding and the results weren’t always perfect, the team’s work ethic and motivation stood out to me. It really reaffirmed why I’m pursuing my material science and engineering degree.
In my role, I predominantly carried out finite element analysis on a variety of components, ranging from brackets & tailpipes to hydraulic pumps. I performed linear static, buckling, and frequency analysis and produced documentation for FIA approval, design iterations, and stress validation. I had the chance to oversee component testing, including the nose impact test and various rear wing and wheel hub fatigue tests (all mandatory tests the FIA request). Seeing first-hand how subjects I learned in my first two years, such as fatigue, fracture mechanics, structures and composites manifest in real-world high-performance components was incredibly exciting. Overall, it was a fantastic opportunity to develop my knowledge of vehicle dynamics, simulation and structures.
Another key responsibility I took on was overload identification. Using specialised software, I analysed both cable and telemetry data to detect peak overloads and reported them to technical directors. By the end of my internship, I managed to build upon a previous intern’s work to develop a demo app that enabled multi-parameter selection and automated reporting for specific overloads or full-season summaries.
I also worked on fastener stress sign-offs, where I interpreted load-displacement data to extract UTS values and assess whether components met required thresholds. To streamline this process, I created a Python application that automated data handling and even drafted scenario-dependent email templates.
Overall, this was an incredible experience that allowed me to work with brilliant people and grow into a more well-rounded engineer. Specifically it gave me the chance to further develop my coding, simulation and structural/material engineering skills. It reinforced my passion for Formula One and structural analysis.
To close they’re a hard-working team, so 2026 better watch out!

MatSoc autumn highlights: bake sale, clothes swap, and what’s coming next

It’s been a lively start to the term in the Department of Materials, and one of the highlights has definitely been the student-led events organised by MatSoc (Materials Society). On Friday 14th November, the Departmental Wellbeing Representative Catherine Saat organised a Bake Sale for the department.

A big thank you to everyone across the department who joined in, contributing an amazing variety of baked goods; from all kinds of brownies to creative cookies and even an incredible cake. It was wonderful to see students stopping by to chat, share, and enjoy the treats, turning the Bake Sale into as much a celebration of community as of delicious food.

Thanks to the generosity of students and staff, the Bake Sale raised £348, which has been donated to student-chosen charities: Centrepoint, One Ummah, Teenage Cancer Trust, and Baluchi. It was a lovely example of how the Materials community can come together for a good cause while having fun at the same time.

Following this, on 17 November, MatSoc hosted a Clothes Swap, providing a relaxed and sustainable way for students to refresh their wardrobes. This event was well-received, giving students a chance to connect across year groups in a friendly, casual setting.

These activities reflect the spirit of MatSoc as a student-led society and the close-knit community within the Department.

Looking Ahead

There’s still plenty more to come this term. MatSoc has a few festive and social events lined up that we’re excited about:

  • End-of-Term Ceilidh (11 December)
  • MatSoc Dinner (19 January)

Please get in touchwit MatSoc if you have any questions: mtsoc@ic.ac.uk. 

Inside the lab: Internship reflections on experimental casting by Céline Bourquin

Céline Bourquin, UG student, Department of Materials
Céline Bourquin, UG student, Department of Materials

Céline Bourquin, an undergraduate student in the Department of Materials, shares her experience interning at Safran Tech, the research and technology branch of Safran, where she worked in the experimental casting lab for advanced turbine blades.

Safran is a French aerospace company that designs and produces engines for aircraft, helicopters and rockets, and aeronautical and military equipment. My one-month internship took place in the laboratory for experimental casting of advanced turbine blades, on the Safran Aircraft Engines site.

The lab team works on characterising materials such as metals, wax, ceramics or superalloys and analyse their interactions, with the objective to improve their properties under extreme conditions such as high temperatures and high stress. While some of their projects focus on finding the microstructures necessary for ideal mechanical properties, others concentrate on elaborating programmes such as heat treatment methods.

Secondary electron StEM image of incipient melts of superalloys
Secondary electron Scanning Electron Microscope image of incipient melts of superalloys

During this internship, I contributed to the sample preparations for the analysis of heat-treated superalloys. Heat treatment is a process that involves heating and cooling materials to achieve desired properties. The process begins by heating the material to a specific temperature, which allows for changes in its microstructure. After reaching the desired temperature, the material is cooled at a controlled rate. In my work, I observed the samples under the microscope to check at which temperatures incipient melts start to appear after cutting, mounting and polishing. The incipient melts indicate chemical segregation, or non-homogeneous composition, which would lead to a decrease in desired mechanical properties and ultimately to reduced engine efficiency. These analyses are necessary to identify which heat-treatment programmes are more adapted to the alloy, and what changes are needed to improve the programmes.

This was my first industrial work experience. I was positively surprised and relieved to discover that what we had learnt in the first year courses was used and referred to regularly in this laboratory. I felt reassured that I wasn’t completely out of place, and that I could perhaps contribute at least a little to their projects. The internship also gave me the opportunity to learn more about large corporations, their processes and culture. In particular, due to the nature of the work carried out in the lab, there was great emphasis placed on safety and security. I was very grateful to the team who made me feel welcome and useful. Everyone was very positive which made going to work enjoyable and I learnt that team dynamics really influence workplace ambiance. Nonetheless, I must admit I was exhausted at the end of each day, but it was a kind of tiredness that comes from doing something new and rewarding. Looking back, I finished each day feeling a little more confident and excited about the path I’d chosen.

 

PhD Spotlight: Vincent Chung on unlocking new possibilities in data-driven materials discovery

Vincent Chung, Department of Materials
Vincent Chung, PhD student, Department of Materials

In our PhD Spotlight series, we speak with research students in the Department of Materials to learn more about their work, inspirations, and experiences during their PhD journey.

This time, we caught up with Vincent Chung, who is exploring how data-driven approaches can help identify synthesizable materials and improve the efficiency of experimental validation. Vincent recently celebrated a major milestone by passing his Phd viva. In this spotlight, he shares what inspired him to pursue this path, talks about his research, and reflects on the challenges and insights gained along the way.

1. What inspired you to study for a PhD?

I have been interested in materials discovery since secondary school, where I was fascinated by books that describe a better future with technologies based on new materials (e.g. Michio Kaku’s “Physics of the Future”). The major reason that I decide to study for a PhD is my Master Project, which was to discover a new material for photocatalytic applications using machine learning. In the end of the project, the identified hypothetical material could not be synthesised, which got me interested in finding ways to identify materials that can be synthesised.

2. How would you explain your research to someone outside the field?

With the data I curated manually, I train machine learning models to predict whether hypothetical inorganic materials can be synthesised using solid-state reactions, which is one of the simplest and oldest synthesis method (sometimes referred to as the shake-and-bake, where you mix the starting chemicals the heat them, kind of like baking a cake!). Afterwards, I train different models to predict the synthesis conditions for the solid-state reactions and compare the use of different training and testing data. The comparison highlights the impact of the training data on the models’ performances.

3. Why did you study this area and why is it important?

There are more and more people who are interested in using data-driven approaches (e.g. large language model is the most recent trend) every year, but not enough attention in whether the data used for training these models is sufficient in terms of quality and variety. This could lead to misinterpretation or misuse of models when they are deployed in real world environment like laboratories.

4. What difference do you hope your research will make?

I hope my research will convince researchers the importance of having better quality and variety of data as opposed to simply implementing the latest and more sophisticated models. New machine learning models are constantly being developed and would sometimes overshadow previous ones, but high-quality data will always be useful.

5. What do you enjoy most about what you do?

I enjoy finding insights and reaching conclusions from analysing data and training models. It is exciting when you learn something new from data that is overlooked by others. It is also fun to look for new ways that the data you curated can be used.

6. What’s something your colleagues would be surprised to learn about you?

I used to play Muay Thai as a hobby and enjoy reading Chinese novels, especially the Xianxia and Wuxia genres.

7. What’s been the biggest challenge so far in your PhD journey?

The biggest challenges I faced during my PhD were problems not related to my research (which would have surprised myself from the past), but several health and family problems. I had to make compromises and changes to my research plan and life during the journey.

8. What advice would you give someone thinking about starting a PhD?

The advice that I would give to someone planning to start a PhD is to really understand the expectation and commitment of a PhD candidate. The best way to do so is to communicate or work with current PhD candidates or postdoctoral fellow (e.g. through the undergraduate research opportunity programme at Imperial, which was what I did), preferably ones whose research aligns with your interest.

 

Vincent’s work highlights the growing role of data-driven methods in materials discovery, and we’re excited to follow the progress of his research in the years ahead.