Professor Patrick Unwin

Pat obtained a BSc Honours degree in Chemistry at Liverpool University in 1985 (Leverhulme Prize and Leblanc Medal for top first) and went on to study for a DPhil at the University of Oxford (1985 - 1988). He was subsequently elected to a Junior Research Fellowship in Physical Sciences, Balliol College, Oxford (1988 - 1991).

Pat moved to the University of Texas at Austin (1990-91) after winning a SERC/NATO Fellowship and worked with Prof. Allen Bard on the development and application of scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM), before returning to the UK to establish the Warwick Electrochemistry & Interfaces Group. At Warwick he has been lecturer (1991-96), senior lecturer (1996-98), Professor (since 1998) and the Founding Director of the EPSRC-Warwick Centre for Analytical Sciences (2008 - 2011) funded by an EPSRC Science and Innovation Award. This became the Warwick Analytical Science Centre, which brings together many of Warwick's analytical facilities, expertise and research groups. He held a European Research Council Advanced Grant (2010-15) through which he and his group developed scanning electrochemical cell microscopy (SECCM) and multifunctional scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM) techniques, with wide applications spanning electrode reactivity (especially of 1D and 2D carbon materials), single cell activity and crystal growth/dissolution,. He was the founding Director of the EPSRC-Warwick Molecular Analytical Science CDT that trained 50 PhD students, many in collaboration with companies (> 15 companies involved).

Pat is particularly well-known for pioneering new and unconventional instrumental techniques, with application across a broad range of science. The drive has been a desire to obtain significant new insights into important physicochemical processes, using techniques that provide information to advance the state of the art. A focus has been the development of high resolution (microscopic and nanoscopic) probes. These advances have been described in more than 400 papers in leading journals and invited book chapters. He has also edited or co-edited 3 substantial volumes on electroanalytical techniques and dynamic electrochemistry. Many of the experimental techniques developed at Warwick have been adopted by other research groups internationally and taken in-house by industry.

Pat’s work has received international recognition through notable international awards (e.g. Marlow Medal, Corday-Morgan Medal, Barker Medal and Tilden Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry; the Vetter Prize and Experimental Electrochemistry Prize from the International Society of Electrochemistry; the ACS Award in Electrochemistry and the Society of Electroanalytical Chemistry Charles N. Reilley Award. Pat is a regular invited speaker at meetings and has extensive international collaborations. Substantial industrial interactions have arisen due to the reputation of the Warwick Electrochemistry and Interfaces Group for developing innovative approaches which provide new insights into complex (heterogeneous) systems relevant to industry. Pat is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the International Society of Electrochemistry.