DfT Science Advisory Council

DfT's Science Advisory Council supports the department on science and technology issues to make sure our work is of the highest standard.

The Science Advisory Council (SAC) at the Department for Transport (DfT) provides strategic level scientific advice and challenge to DfT. Specific activities include:

  • horizon scanning – considering how emerging trends and developments might potentially affect current policy and practice
  • reviewing departmental strategic evidence plans
  • strengthening links with the academic community
  • advising on specific requests from officials
  • advising on the quality of evidence processes, capacity and capability within DfT

The council provides independent advice and its members come from a mix of transport and non-transport areas.

Reports

The conclusions and recommendations described in the SAC position papers are the opinion of the SAC at the time they are produced. These positions may change over time as new technology, policy and societal factors emerge.

Chair

Professor Alastair Lewis, Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry, University of York and Science Director, National Centre for Atmospheric Science (appointed December 2021)

Members

The members of the Science Advisory Council are:

  • Dr Nick Reed CPsy CSci FCIHT, founder of Reed Mobility (appointed November 2024)
  • James Gaade, Head of Programme Management, The Faraday Institution (appointed December 2021)
  • Nick Pidgeon, Professor of Environmental Psychology, Cardiff University (appointed August 2017)
  • Patricia Thornley, Director of the Energy and Bioproducts Research Institute, Aston University (appointed December 2021)
  • Ricardo Martinez-Botas, Professor of Turbomachinery, Imperial College London (appointed January 2014)
  • Rob Miller, Chair in Aerothermal Technology, University of Cambridge (appointed September 2020)
  • Siddartha Khastgir, Head of Verification and Validation for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, WMG, University of Warwick (appointed December 2021)
  • William Powrie, Professor of Geotechnical Engineering, University of Southampton (appointed December 2021) 
  • Professor Alison Tomlin, Environmental Modelling in the School of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Leeds (appointed November 2024)
  • Richard Wills, Professor of Electrochemical Energy Systems and is the current Head of Department for Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southampton (appointed November 2024)

Chair and member biographies

Chair, Professor Alastair Lewis FRSC

Alastair Lewis is currently Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at the University of York and a Science Director at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science.

Professor Lewis is an experimentalist who studies atmospheric emissions and the wider impacts of air pollution on ecosystems, climate and public health. His research has included making field measurements of pollution on all seven continents, from onboard ships and from research aircraft. He has developed new methods of chemical analysis that have illuminated the roles that fuels and combustion play in atmospheric processes, from city centres to the global scale.

Professor Lewis has been awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry John Jeyes Prize for Environment, Energy and Sustainability and its Silver Medal for Analytical Science, along with a Philip Leverhulme Prize in Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences. He has authored more than 300 academic papers, reviews and reports.

Professor Lewis has been chair of the Air Quality Expert Group since 2019, an independent advisory committee to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

Previous roles have included a 5-year part-time secondment with the Natural Environment Research Council developing investment strategies for technology development and working with science advisory boards for several UK research councils, the World Meteorological Organisation and UN-Environment. He has served on the chemistry subpanel for both the 2014 and 2021 Research Excellence Framework assessments.

Dr Nick Reed CPsy CSci FCIHT

Nick is the founder of Reed Mobility, a research consultancy working in the transport sector. He works across the public, private and academic sectors, aiming to deliver transport systems that are safe, clean, efficient, ethical and equitable. This has included three years in a part-time role as National Highways’ first ever Chief Road Safety Adviser, helping to devise their Vision Zero strategy through application of the Safe System approach.

Prior to starting Reed Mobility, Nick was Head of Mobility R&D at Bosch, the world’s largest automotive supplier, leading research teams working on urban mobility challenges in cities around the world. Before that, he was Academy Director (equivalent to CTO) at TRL (the UK’s Transport Research Laboratory) where he led human factors, driver behaviour and automated vehicle research. At a corporate level he was responsible for research strategy, academic engagement, technical quality and skills. He also held a visiting professorship at the University of Surrey 5G Innovation Centre to build links between research teams working on transport and communications technologies.
His academic background is in psychology with an MA from the University of Cambridge and a DPhil on visual perception and cognitive psychology from University of Oxford, where he continued as a post-doctoral researcher, working on neural networks and genetic algorithms. He is a chartered psychologist, a chartered scientist and a Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation.

James Gaade FIMechE CEng

James Gaade is Head of Programme Management at The Faraday Institution, the UK’s independent institute for electrochemical energy storage research, skills development, market analysis and early stage commercialisation. James has responsibilities across the research programme portfolio, bringing together research scientists and industry partners on battery research projects with commercial potential.

Prior to joining The Faraday Institution, James led an independent consultancy, working with the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre on developing supply chain capability for battery materials, with the British Standards Institute as technical author of a code of practice for battery modules and packs, with SMEs on collaborative technology projects and supporting the Advanced Propulsion Centre Technology Developer Accelerator Programme.

Previously, James worked for Jaguar Land Rover for 20 years on vehicle propulsion systems, working on projects from research through to vehicle production. He held varied leadership roles in product engineering, research and technology and product marketing. James’s last role was Head of Powertrain Research and Technology, where he led a team of engineers delivering a research portfolio focused on the next generation of vehicle electrification technologies and internal combustion engine capability for near-zero emissions, working collaboratively with industry and academic partners.

A Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering, James graduated from De Montfort University with a BEng in Mechanical Engineering and from Loughborough University with an MSc in Automotive Systems Engineering.

Professor Nick Pidgeon MBE

Nick is Professor of Environmental Risk and Director of the Understanding Risk Research Group within the School of Psychology at Cardiff University. His research and science policy work is interdisciplinary, at the interface of social psychology, human geography, risk research and the sociology of technologies.

He has worked over the years on safety and the organisational causes of major industrial accidents, on monetary and non-monetary valuation of risk and safety, and latterly on how the public view and engage with environmental and technological risks and sustainability.

His most recent work has focused on topics such as attitudes to nuclear power and renewable energy, people’s biographies of everyday energy use including that of transportation, attitudes to future energy-system change, and perceptions of climate change risk. He is currently a co-investigator to the UK Energy Research Centre.

Professor Pidgeon has filled numerous science advisory roles, including for HMT, DEFRA, the former Department of Energy and Climate Change, the National Infrastructure Commission and the former National Radiological Protection Board.

He is a Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis, an Honorary Fellow of the British Science Association and was awarded an MBE in 2014 for services to climate change awareness and energy security policy.

In 2006, he chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change inquiry, which recommended the setting up of the UK Climate Change Committee.

Before moving to Cardiff in 2006, Nick directed the Centre for Environmental Risk at the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia. Before that, he held positions at Bangor University and at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Professor Patricia Thornley FREng

Patricia Thornley is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering with 28 years’ experience working on energy projects in industry and academia. She is director of the Energy and Bioproducts Research Institute at Aston University and Associate Dean for Research at Aston’s College of Engineering and Physical Sciences.

Patricia has led the UK’s £6 million SUPERGEN Bioenergy hub since 2012, with responsibility for coordinating research into bioenergy and strategically guiding its membership of over 30 academic and 20 industrial and policy partners to focus on sustainable bioenergy and biofuel development.

Patricia’s research focuses on sustainability assessment of energy systems, particularly bioenergy and low carbon fuels, evaluating the environmental, economic and social consequences of implementation pathways.

Working at the interface of the academic, policy and industrial communities, she served as an expert in the 2020 Climate Assembly UK, a member of the advisory group for Elsevier’s 2021 international report on pathways to net zero, and chaired the Climate Change Committee’s advisory board for its 2020 biomass report.

Currently, Patricia is a member of the Energy Working Group supporting HMT’s Green Technical Advisory Group, DEFRA’s Tree and Woodland Scientific Advisory Group and the National Farmers’ Union Net Zero Advisory Board.

Professor Peter Jones OBE FCIHT FRGS HonFIHE

Peter Jones is Professor of Transport and Sustainable Development in the Centre for Transport Studies at University College London (UCL).

He is a member of the Independent Transport Commission, the City of London Transport Strategy Board, the South-East Wales Transport Commission, the Dubai Council for Future Transportation, the Hong Kong ERP Advisory Panel and the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation Urban Design Panel.

As well as his membership of DfT’s Science Advisory Council, Professor Jones co-chairs the DfT’s Joint Analysis Development Panel.

Professor Jones advises the European Commission and a number of major cities and national governments around the world and was awarded an OBE for services to national transport policy in January 2017.

He is involved in a number of national and international research projects, including being Scientific Co-ordinator of the EU ‘MORE’ project, which is looking at future pressures on main roads in cities resulting from socio-demographic changes and technological developments, and how these might be accommodated through more dynamic allocation of road space.

He also plays a leading role in representing UCL on the EIT for Urban Mobility, an EU Knowledge Innovation Community established in 2019.

Professor Jones has a wide range of transport research and teaching interests, covering analytical methods and policy, including:

  • traveller attitudes and behaviour
  • travel trends and the determinants of travel demand
  • traffic restraint studies
  • accessibility studies
  • policy option generation
  • major transport economic and social impact studies
  • public engagement
  • development of new survey and appraisal methods
  • activity-based modelling and analysis
  • advances in urban street planning and design

Professor Ricardo Martinez-Botas FREng

Ricardo is Professor of Turbomachinery and Deputy Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London.

He leads a research group in the area of low carbon vehicles with particular emphasis on highly downsized engines, turbochargers and energy storage systems. He has developed the area of unsteady flow aerodynamics of small turbines, with particular application to the turbocharger industry.

Ricardo’s collaborations with international engine, turbocharger and vehicle companies have led to ground-breaking technical innovation and industrial impact. He directs 2 University Technology Centres at Imperial College: The Caterpillar Innovation and Research Centre and The Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHIET) Future of Boosting Innovation Centre. These bring researchers together with world-leading industrial partners, to take science and innovation through to having real-world impact.

From 2020 to 2021 Ricardo was Chair of the ASME International Gas Turbine Institute. He is a visiting professor at the University Teknologi of Malaysia and a guest professor at Shanghai Jiatong University. He has published over 120 journal papers, has contributed to many peer-reviewed conferences and is an associate editor of 2 journals.

Ricardo has an MEng degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College London and a DPhil from the University of Oxford. In 2019, he was awarded the President’s Medal for Excellence in Research by Imperial College.

Professor Rob Miller FREng

Rob is Chair in Aerothermal Technology and Director of the Whittle Laboratory for turbomachinery research at the University of Cambridge. His research is aimed at reducing the emissions of both air travel and land-based power production, on which he works with a multidisciplinary team and a range of leading companies.

Professor Miller’s research interests include compressors and turbine aerodynamics, effects of manufacturing variation, pressure gain combustion for gas turbines, and energy and the environment.

Professor Miller has won the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Gas Turbine Award 3 times and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Thomas Hawksley Gold Medal in 2010.

Before joining the University of Cambridge in 2001, he was a Senior Lecturer at New College, Oxford University, and obtained his DPhil from Oxford.

Dr Siddartha Khastgir CEng MIMechE

Siddartha Khastgir is the Head of Verification and Validation for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) at WMG, University of Warwick. He leads several collaborative R&D projects with industrial and academic partners nationally and internationally.

Siddartha’s research focuses on generating safety evidence and arguments, test scenario generation, simulation-based testing and safety of AI systems. Leveraging the cross-domain nature of safety, he is also involved in safety research in aviation, marine and healthcare.

Siddartha is an active member of various national and international standardisation and regulatory groups, including ISO, SAE and ASAM. Currently, he represents the UK on several ISO technical committees and is the lead author for 2 new ISO standards for aspects of automated driving systems. He sits on the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe committees on safety of automated driving.

Prior to joining WMG, Siddartha was with FEV GmbH in Germany, leading automotive software development and testing for series production projects.

Siddartha has received national and international recognition for his research contributions, including the prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship in 2019 focused on safety evaluation of CAVs, and was listed as one of Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe 2018. He is an active public speaker, including giving a TEDx talk on his research on the safety of CAVs.

Siddartha is a Chartered Engineer and an elected member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Council. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and a PhD from WMG, University of Warwick.

Professor William Powrie FREng CEng FICE

William is Professor of Geotechnical Engineering and former Dean of Engineering and the Environment at the University of Southampton. He has long-standing research and educational interests in transportation infrastructure, including impacts on and of the environment and the wider role of transport in society.

William is Convenor of the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC) and leads the UK Rail Research and Innovation Network (UKRRIN) Centre of Excellence in Infrastructure. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Permanent Way Institution.

Through his research, William has been involved in major transportation infrastructure projects including the North Wales Coast Road Conwy Crossing, the Medway Tunnel, Jubilee Line Extension stations at Canary Wharf and Canada Water, the Thames Tunnel and embedded retaining walls on HS1. Recent research for Network Rail led to a substantial reduction in the cost of railway electrification mast foundations, following previous cost overruns in this area.

William currently chairs HS2’s Geotechnical Independent Expert Panel and the Royal Academy of Engineering / Lloyds Register Foundation, Engineering X, Safer End of Engineered Life Programme Board.

Professor Alison Tomlin

Alison is Professor of Environmental Modelling in the School of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Leeds. Her research and teaching expertise is interdisciplinary, covering sustainable production and utilisation of alternative fuels; emissions and air quality impacts of combustion processes; and citywide assessments of air quality and low carbon renewable potential. She has previously held an advanced research fellowship funded by EPSRC and was a Maria Goeppert-Mayer Visiting Scholar at Argonne National Laboratories, Chicago, USA.

In previous work she has led several collaborative field measurement and modelling projects assessing the impacts of transport on urban air quality and public health, including on-road vehicle emissions testing. She has recently been involved in projects related to tailored approaches for developing sustainable advanced biofuels, hydrogen utilisation, and the development of nature-based solutions for reducing exposure to urban air pollutants. She has authored more than 200 papers and reports.

She served as a member of the Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG), an independent advisory committee to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) ) from 2012 to 2018. She is a fellow of the Combustion Institute and was editor of the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute from 2012 to 2018.

Professor Richard Wills

Richard Wills is Professor of Electrochemical Energy Systems and is the current Head of Department for Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southampton.  He has over 20 years’ experience of electrochemical energy storage and conversion technologies ranging from fundamental materials to system-level integration. His research focuses on batteries, fuel cells and supercapacitors including their performance in automotive, maritime, aviation and stationary applications.

Prior to taking up an academic role, Richard spent 10 years working as a consulting engineer within the Research Institute for Industry at the University of Southampton along with a short period working for an SME as a battery technologist. He has worked with a range of industry partners, ranging from start-up companies to multi-national organisations. A strong motivation for his work is the development of systems using environmental and life cycle assessment metrics as part of the design process. Principally, this involves the use of aqueous electrolytes and abundant, low-cost, active materials that are part of established material flows and recycling processes, for example lead and aluminium. This has enabled development of collaborative research projects with industry partners and academic groups in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Richard is a member of the IET and has a BSc in Chemistry from Durham University, an MRes in Bio-Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Nottingham and a PhD in Electrochemical Energy Storage from the University of Southampton.

DfT College of Experts

DfT College of Experts has been established to provide the department with scientific and technical services.

Contact details

SAC.Secretariat@dft.gov.uk

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