Instructors

Prof. A. J. Bushby

Visiting Professor in Materials Science
Queen Mary University of London

Prof Andy Bushby is a visiting professor in Materials Science at Queen Mary University of London. Both his BSc and PhD were obtained at Queen Mary where he specialized in mechanical characterization of materials ranging from fracture mechanics of brittle matrix composites to high temperature fatigue and creep in ceramics. As a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Sydney in 1993 he was introduced to the (then new) technique of nanoindentation, working on calibration of spherical indenter tip shapes and plasticity in ceramics. Returning to Queen Mary in 1995 he established the nanomechanics laboratory at Queen Mary as one of the leading facilities in the UK, contributing to international nanoindentation programs such as FASTE and INDICOAT and more recently MeProVisc. As a member of ISO working groups he developed ISO 14577 part 4 for measurement of coatings and ISO 29381 for determination of tensile test parameters from indentation.

As a leading academic in micro-mechanical testing Prof Bushby has taught nanoindentation at Masters level for the past 25 years and supervised over 25 PhD students. He has published more than 50 scientific papers on nanoindentation and is particularly well-known for applications of spherical indenter tip geometry, test methods and calibration techniques and for his work on plasticity size effects. He has investigated a diverse range of materials systems from polymers and hydrated solids, to bones and teeth, functional ceramics and peizoelectric thin films, to irradiated materials for nuclear fusion reactors. He has given over 20 invited talks at international conferences such as the Materials Research Society ICMCTF, TMS, and Gordon Research Conferences and has previously organized 7 international nanoindentation workshops or conferences. He was elected chair of the 2018 Gordon Research Conference on ‘Thin film and small scale mechanical behaviour’. He is also Chief Technical Officer of Ultima Forma Ltd, manufacturing nano-structured engineering components.

Dr. N. Randall

Vice President Business Development
Alemnis AG

Dr Nicholas Randall is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Institute of Materials (CEng FIMMM) and holds a BSc in Materials Science from Brunel University (London, UK) 1994 and a Ph.D. from Neuchatel University (Neuchatel, Switzerland) 1997. His PhD Thesis entitled, “Development & Application of a Multi-functional Nanotribological Tool” consisted of developing the first combined system for nanoindentation and Scanning Force Microscopy (SFM). This system has now been commercially available since 1997. After his PhD, he served as the Customer Services Manager with CSM Instruments in Switzerland. From 2002 to 2014, he was the Vice-President of Business Development at CSM Instruments in 2002 and was responsible for setting up the US subsidiary of CSM Instruments in Boston, MA. He was then Lead Scientist and Head of Business Development with Anton Paar Tritec, following the acquisition of CSM Instruments by Anton Paar in 2013. He is now Vice President Business Development at Alemnis AG, a company specialised in small-scale mechanical testing instruments and in-situ testing solutions.

Dr Randall has published extensively in the field of surface mechanical properties testing, especially related to scratch (adhesion) testing, nanoindentation and tribology testing. He is chairman of ASTM committee G02.40, responsible for developing tribological test standards for non-abrasive wear. He is a regular reviewer for Surface & Coatings Technology, Thin Solid Films, Wear, Tribology International, Materials Chemistry & Physics, Materials Letters and Journal of Materials Research. He also runs a course on Reliability and Test of MEMS and Microsystems as part of FSRM (Swiss Federation for Research in Microtechnology) and lectures annually at the MIT Professional Education Course on Tribology.