| Serena Corr | |
| Workplaces: | University of Sheffield University of Glasgow University of Kent University of California, Santa Barbara |
| Alma Mater: | Trinity College Dublin |
| Thesis Title: | New magnetic nanocomposite materials |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Yurii Gun'ko |
| Known For: | Next generation battery materials |
Serena Corr is a chair in Functional Materials and Professor in Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield. She works on next-generation battery materials and advanced characterisation techniques for nanomaterials.
Corr grew up in Clonmel and attended Presentation Secondary School. She studied chemistry at Trinity College Dublin.[1] She completed her doctoral work on magnetic structured materials (nanoparticles and quantum dots for biomedical applications) with Yurii Gun'ko.[2] She focussed on nanomaterials that could be used for biomedical applications.[3] Corr worked on several outreach programs during her PhD. She joined the University of California, Santa Barbara, working with Ram Seshadri on vanadate metal-insulator transitions from 2007 to 2009.[4] She worked on rutile vanadium oxide.[4] [5] They also explored molybdenum dioxide materials that demonstrated reversible lithium storage capacity.[6]
As a student, Serena was heavily involved in the Maths Department in Trinity College Dublin, acting as a course administrator for Tim Murphy's 061 Practical Computing course.
Corr was made a lecturer at the University of Kent. She spent her first year writing papers and proposals for the Diamond Light Source and ISIS neutron source.[7] Her early work considered ways to design nanostructured materials using organometallic precursors.[8] [9] She demonstrated that magnetic nanoparticles could be used as MRI contrast agents.[10] She held a visiting professorship at the University of Otago.
Corr joined the University of Glasgow as a lecturer in 2013 and was made a professor in 2018. She took part in the science communication competition I'm a Scientist, Get me out of here!.[11] In 2014 she collaborated with Eleanor Schofield to conserve the Mary Rose.[12] She developed multi-functional magnetic nano-composites that could remove the iron ions within waterlogged wood.
In 2013 she edited a chapter for Nanomedicine, Magnetic Nanoparticles for Targeted Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy. Her group look at new insertion electrodes for energy storage.[13] These were formed from nanoparticles, which house lithium ions that can be moved between the cathode and anode.[14] She showed that shape and size of the nanoparticles can impact their electrochemical properties. She uses fast microwave processing and alkoxides for continuous chemical synthesis of next generation battery materials.[15] In 2015 she was awarded a £1.2 million Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grant to investigate the reliability of these materials in devices.[16] This involves studying the structure of electrodes and dynamics of ion movement.[17] [18] In 2017 she was made a Training Champion for the Faraday Institution, an academia - industry response to the Faraday Battery Challenge.[19] [20] Her research on battery longevity and how Lithium-ion batteries degrade was covered by The Daily Telegraph.[21] In 2019 she will talk about the history of batteries at the Royal Institution.[22]
In 2017 Corr was selected as a Royal Society of Chemistry Journal of Materials Chemistry lecturer.[23] She joined the University of Sheffield as a chair in Functional Materials and Professor in Chemical and Biological Engineering in 2018.[24] [25] She serves on the management board of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council doctoral training centre in energy storage.[26] She is an associate editor of Royal Society of Chemistry journal Nanoscale and the IOP Publishing journal Progress in Energy.[27] [28]