Summary
Jay Wadhawan leads the Electrochemical Engineering Research Group at Hull, and works at the interface between Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. He is an industry-facing academic whose work has received numerous national and international awards, such as the Best Business Impact Award at the 2019 KTP Best of the Best Awards and Runner-Up in the 2015 Wendy Schmidt XPrize on Monitoring Ocean Health.
Jay's research is focused on fundamental electrochemistry for applications in the development of economical and sustainable solutions to industrial problems. His work has led to over 80 papers (h-index = 29).
Jay is the Knowledge Transfer Partnership Champion at Hull, having worked successfully with numerous industrial collaborators including Analox, Ansell Microgard, Centrica Storage, Johnson-Matthey, ParagonID, Schumberger, Singleton Birch and TWI. He is the Industrial Placements and Study-Abroad Co-ordinator for Chemical Engineering undergraduates at Hull.
Jay trained as a chemist at Oxford University and completed his DPhil in Electrochemical Sensor Engineering in 2003 under the auspices of Professor Richard Compton. He was a Leverhulme Trust scholar with Professor Christian Amatore of the French Academy of Sciences (a former science advisor to the French President and a recipient of the Legion of Honour). Jay moved to Hull as a Lecturer (2005), progressing to Senior Lecturer (2011), Reader (2019) and Professor (2020). He co-founded the Department of Chemical Engineering at Hull (2012) which awards degrees accredited by the IChemE, and was an Associate Member of the Hull-York Medical School (2012-18). He has served on Hull University Senate and Court (2012-14), was Vice-Chair in Division 6 at International Society of Electrochemistry (2011-14), editor of RSC Specialist Periodical Reports in Electrochemistry (2011-14), and a member of the Executive Committee for the RSC Electrochemistry Group (2007-12). Jay has held visiting academic positions (Brazil/France).
Jay teaches Chemical Engineering students at all levels. He has received the Hull University Union Student-led Teaching Award for 'Best Supervisor' (2015), and was shortlisted for the 'Overall Outstanding Achievement' award (2017). He received a Faulty Award for "Outstanding Research Collaboration" (2019) and a Faculty Excellence Award (2019), and a University Employee Excellence Award for "Enterprise and Innovation" (2019).