Saiful Islam (professor)


Saiful Islam is a British chemist and professor of materials chemistry at the University of Bath. He was a 2013 recipient of the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.
His research uses advanced computer modelling techniques to gain atomic-scale insights into new materials for clean energy applications including lithium-ion batteries, solid oxide fuel cells and perovskite solar cells.

Early life and education

Islam was born in 1963 in Karachi, Pakistan to ethnically Bengali parents. The family moved to London in 1964 and he grew up in Crouch End, north London. There he went to Stationers' Company's School, a state comprehensive. He received both a BSc degree in chemistry and a PhD from University College London, where he studied under Professor Richard Catlow. Subsequently, he held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Eastman Kodak laboratories in Rochester, New York, working on oxide superconductors.

Career and Research

Islam returned to the UK in 1990 to become a lecturer, then reader, at the University of Surrey. In January 2006 he was appointed professor of Materials Chemistry at the University of Bath.
His research interests lie in the field of clean energy materials, especially new materials for next generations of lithium batteries, solid oxide fuel cells and perovskite solar cells. His group applies computational methods combined with structural techniques to study fundamental atomistic properties such as ion conduction, defect chemistry and surface structures. He has presented more than 82 invited talks at international conferences, and has over 220 publications in international scientific journals.
He has been a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Materials Chemistry, and sits on the Advisory Board of the RSC journal Energy and Environmental Science. He is principal investigator of an EPSRC programme grant , and sits on the expert panel of the Faraday Institution. He is Principal Investigator of the Faraday Institution 'CATMAT' project on Next-generation Lithium-Ion Cathode Materials.
He presented the 2016 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, entitled "Supercharged: Fuelling the Future" on the theme of energy, a commemorative lecture series for the BBC which celebrated 80 years since the Christmas Lectures were first broadcast on television in 1936. The lectures were broadcast on BBC Four, and achieved over 3.5 million interactions through the BBC broadcasts and social media. Islam was interviewed before these lectures for articles in The Guardian''. A demonstration in these lectures led to a Guinness World Record for the highest voltage produced by a fruit battery using more than 1,000 lemons.
Islam has served on the Diversity Committee of the Royal Society, and was selected for the Royal Society's 'Inspiring Scientists' project that recorded the life stories of British scientists with minority ethnic heritage in partnership with National Life Stories at the British Library. His outreach activities include talks on energy materials to audiences of 800+ A-level students using 3D glasses organised by the TTP Education in Action at the UCL Institute of Education, London. He was interviewed for The Life Scientific programme on BBC Radio 4 in October 2019.

Personal life

Islam lives in Bath with his wife, Dr Gita Sunthankar, and their two children, Yasmin and Zak. His outside interests include family breaks, indie music, films, progressive politics and football. In 2019, he declined a New Year Honours Award of an OBE, and is on the long list of people who have declined a British honour. He is an atheist and Patron of Humanists UK.

Awards and honours