Prof. Matt Unthank

Professor of Chemistry

Northumbria University

Matt Unthank is a Professor of Chemistry at Northumbria University and has background in polymer, coatings and composites research, specifically for commercially relevant applications. He has a career spanning both industrial and academic roles across the pharmaceutical (GSK), industrial chemicals and coatings industries (AkzoNobel) in addition to his current academic role as Professor of Chemistry at Northumbria University. Over recent years he has worked on projects from a range of funders (EPSRC, DSTL and OfWAT) as well as numerous research projects with industrial partners such as AkzoNobel, Altana, SHD Composites, Northumbrian Water and more. He is an EPSRC Researcher in Residence Fellow, with the High Value Manufacturing Catapult (CPI and NCC) to develop sustainable high-performance polymers, a member of the EPSRC Early Career Forum (ECF) in Manufacturing Research (https://ecfmanufacturing.com/current-members/) and co-lead for the bulk chemical sector in the sustainability focussed £5M EPSRC-TransFire Hub involving 12 academic institutions, >100 companies and 14 non-governmental organisations (https://transfire-hub.org/). Further to this he is a founding member of the ‘Synthesis and Polymer Innovation’ centre at Northumbria (SPIN, www.northumbria.ac.uk/spin) to support polymer scale-up and commercialisation projects with industrial partners.