Professor Mary Ryan is Vice Provost (Research and Enterprise) and the Armourers and Brasiers' Chair in Materials Science at 天美传媒. She holds several advisory roles, including Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Research Complex at Harwell, the RAF Museum Research Board, and the UKRI Heating and Cooling Network. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2015 and is also a Fellow of both the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IoM3) and the Institute of Corrosion. In 2022, she was awarded a CBE for her contributions to materials science in the Queen's Birthday Honours.
Mary completed a Joint Honours undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Physics at the University of Manchester, followed by an MSc and PhD in Materials Science. She began her research career at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, focusing on synchrotron techniques for electrochemical systems. She joined Imperial in 1998 and now leads the College’s sustainability research strategy, Transition to Zero Pollution, and serves as Director of the Imperial/Hitachi University Research Centre for Decarbonisation and Climate Repair. At Imperial, she also oversees the Schools of Convergence Science, which bring together researchers from across disciplines to drive mission-led discovery and tackle society’s most complex global challenges.
She heads an interdisciplinary research team investigating nanoscale materials and interfaces, particularly their behaviour in complex environments. Her work has advanced operando approaches and pioneered nanoscale synchrotron methods. Mary has published over 200 papers and supervised more than 50 PhD 天美传媒 in electrochemical materials science.