Award winners 2021

Bessemer Gold Medal

John James Ferriola

Former Chairman, President & CEO Nucor

John James Ferriola led Nucor from 2011, when he became President, until 2019, when he retired. Having served as Chairman, President and CEO. He also served as Chairman of the World Steel Association in 2016 and 2017.

During this time John led the redevelopment of the steel industry in the USA, redefining the role the mini mill as a high quality steel producer and serious competitor to the conventional integrated route. By investing in new technology, innovation and product development, Nucor has been able to take a leading position and develop a new business model that has been replicted by others. As pioneers of the commercialisation of twin roll casting, Ferriola has shown himself to be a true successor Bessemer, bringing to full reasliation one of Bessemer's own early patented inventions for efficient steel production. He also ensured that the business returned year on year strong financial results, again confounding industry expectations.

Griffith Medal & Prize

Prof Maria-Magdalena Titirici ProfGradIMMM

RAEng Chair in Emerging Sustainable Technologies

Magda Titirici is an outstanding mid-career material scientist who was recently awarded a prestigious £3m Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies at Imperial College. In this role she will act as an ambassador for sustainable energy materials over the next 10 years. This award highlights her international recognition in this area, based on ground-breaking scientific discoveries in sustainable materials energy storage and conversion technologies. Magda is a research leader for sustainability in battery research where is has been especially active in developing environmentally friendly and highly performant electrodes for more sustainable batteries (i.e. Na and K ion batteries). She recently wrote an invited inspirational essay in Advanced Energy Materials entitled “Sustainable Batteries- Quo Vadis”. Magda has made significant scientific contributions towards the development and fundamental understanding of sustainable catalysts, free of critical metals for H2 production via electrolysis (including a new strategy of biomass electrolysis instead of water) and fuel cells.

In addition, Magda is the Research Director for the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial as well as being recently elected as the president of the Materials Division for the RSC.

To date Magda has 240 publications with over 25,000 citations. Her papers have been highlighted in collections such as Top Women in Materials (RSC), Top Women in Catalysts as well as in Engineering (Wiley). She has been part of the Clarviate 1% top cited global researchers over the past 4 years. She has been invited to many leading international conferences, a recent example is the Commonwealth Science Conference organised by the Royal Society which includes with prominent people fighting to combat climate change such as David Attenborough. 

Besides her excellence in research, Magda is passionate about educating our younger sustainable materials scientists of the future. Her alumni have all secured very important positions across the world in academic (China, France, Turkey, Italy), in industry (Evonik, BASF) or as professional editors, i.e. Nature or RSC. In addition, she is tackling global challenges worldwide via joint research projects funded via GCRF with researchers in Senegal, Thailand, Argentina and Colombia.

Outreach is high on Magda’s activities being involved in “I Can Be”, a charity inspiring young girls from under privileged backgrounds into science and engineering. Her group can often be found at various science festivals at Imperial and beyond. 

Magda is a strong proponent for a more inclusive and diverse materials chemistry community. In her role of Associate Editor for “J. Mater.Chem. A” she worked with the RSC to create the report ”Is publishing in chemistry gender biased” and promoted its main findings worldwide. She was the catalyst for a paper entitled “A diverse view of science to catalyse change” jointly published by JACS, Nature Chemistry, Chem.Sci, Angewandte Chemie.

Medal for Excellence

Robin Hickson CEng CSci FIMMM

Principal Robin J Hickson LLC

Robin Hickson is a renowned mining consultant with over 50 years' of experience with building and operating mines around the world. He led the building of 15 grassroots mines including Grasberg and DOZ (Indonesia), El Abra and El Tesoro (Chile), Cerro Verde (Peru), Karonie and Bow River (Australia), Kubaka (Russia), Fort Knox (Alaska), Mesquite (CA), Ortiz (NM), Big Springs (NV), American Soda (CO), Willow Creek (UT) and Santa Cruz (AZ), as well as 9 major brownfield plant expansions in Peru, Chile, Zambia and the US for mining companies including Freeport-McMoRan, Cyprus Amax, GoldFields, New Jersey Zinc, Asarco, and Kerr McGee. Hickson has held leadership positions with Aker Kvaerner, McIntosh Engineering, Crescent Technologies, and Stantec, firms which provide Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management (EPCM) services. 

Robin presently provides corporate board advice and delivers expert consulting services and analyses to mining companies, engineering firms and institutions involved in the development and operation of mine facilities. He applies his proven leadership skills in combination with a strong project management capability to all stages of mine development. His expertise spans evaluation, acquisition, feasibility, process design, engineering, construction, expansion, and organisation of mines and mining projects. Recent assignments include project start-up advice in South America, project execution guidance in Turkey; on-site fatal flaw/critical issues analyses of domestic and foreign operations for Australian and North American mining companies, M&A corporate advice to a European engineering organization, on-site issues resolution guidance for a US gold company, evaluation of a mine start-up in eastern USA, due diligence for a Mexican acquisition, as well as technical input to several NI 43-101 compliant prefeasibility studies, feasibility studies and project execution plans. Robin is noted for a practical, hands-on approach to project execution and ability to start up and guide projects to successful development.

Robin is a Chartered Engineer, a long-term member of IOM3, SME, and holds a BSc in Mining Engineering degree from Imperial College (1965) and an MBA from Tulane University (Louisiana, 1990). He was awarded the AIME Robert Earll McConnell Award in 1999 for his resolute commitment to innovation resulting in significant advances in the gold and copper industries. He is lead author of a book, “Project Management for Mining: Handbook for Delivering Project Success”, which was published in 2015, in addition to three earlier books. During the course of his career, he has provided inspiration to a generation of mining engineers and is the originator for numerous technical papers in the field.

Silver Medal

Dr Stella Pedrazzini MIMMM

Lecturer/RAEng Fellow Imperial College London

Dr Pedrazzini is a young research leader with extensive experience in high-resolution characterization and corrosion of engineering alloys. She has applied this to the materials used in the nuclear and, especially, gas-turbine engine industries.

Dr Pedrazzini has been a STEM ambassador since 2017 and is committed to outreach programmes to enthuse school children, women and other underrepresented groups about materials. She has delivered several women-in-science workshops, worked with IOM3, the Mayor of London’s Scientist initiative and judged the Big Bang Science fair.

Sir Andrew Bryan Medal

Stuart Patrick FIMMM

Stuart Patrick FIMMM is the outgoing chair of the Polymer Society this year has been involved in the committee and the previous Plastics and Rubber Institute (PRI) for over 40 years. He continues to serve as chair of the PVC Committee, Sustainable Development Group and with the Manchester Polymer Group (MPG). Stuart Patrick has been not only the Polymer Society chairman on several occasions. He has also been the Chair of the PVC conference. Every three years PVC is one of the Institute's most successful events. He is also a member of the Worshipful Company of Horners member. Stuart Patrick was awarded his FIMMM in 2004 in recognition of his service to IOM3 and previously to the PRI. He remains a Trustee of the IOM3 trading company IOM Communications. 

His on-going contribution has been significant and his attitude hugely positive to memebrs and the wider technical body. As the incoming chair he was hugely supportive and informative.