ProfessorChristopher Gourlay

Professor of Physical Metallurgy

Department of Materials - Faculty of Engineering

BIO

Chris is a Professor of Physical Metallurgy within the Engineering Alloys research theme. He joined the Department of Materials in 2008 and was promoted to Professor in 2020.

Chris read metallurgy at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford (MEng, 2002) and the University of Queensland, Australia (PhD, 2007). His PhD studies were conducted within the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Cast Metals Manufacturing (the CAST CRC) on semi-solid deformation of Al and Mg alloys and microstructure development in high pressure die casting. He returned to the UK to join the Department of Materials at Imperial College London in 2008 on a RAEng/EPSRC Research Fellowship.

His group specialises in the origins of microstructure in phase transformations with a focus on alloy solidification. In recent years, research in the group has targeted understanding and controlling microstructure formation in electronic solder joints and lightweight magnesium and aluminium alloys. Chris is a Fellow of the Institute of Materials (FIMMM) and the Institute of Cast Metals Engineers (FICME) in the UK. He is the current Chair of the Electronic Packaging and Interconnection Materials Committee (2023-27) at TMS in the USA.

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Professor of Physical Metallurgy
    Imperial College London, United Kingdom7 Sep 2020 - present
  • Reader
    Imperial College London, United Kingdom5 Sep 2016 - 7 Sep 2020
  • Senior Lecturer
    Imperial College London, United Kingdom4 Aug 2014 - 5 Sep 2016
  • Lecturer
    Imperial College London, United Kingdom1 Oct 2012 - 4 Aug 2014
  • RAEng/EPSRC Research Fellow
    Imperial College London, United Kingdom1 Sep 2008 - 1 Sep 2013
  • Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    The University of Queensland, Australia1 Jan 2007 - 1 Jun 2008

DEGREES

  • PhD, Materials Engineering
    The University of Queensland, Australia
  • MEng, Metallurgy and the Science of Materials
    University of Oxford, United Kingdom

FACULTY

  • Faculty of Engineering

POSITION NAME

  • Professor of Physical Metallurgy

FIELDS OF RESEARCH