Double thesis award win for AWE-sponsored PhD student

Joe Gilkes from the University of Warwick, has been recognised with two prestigious awards for his outstanding doctoral research.

Joe was awarded the 2025 Armourers and Brasiers Materials Thesis Prize and the Faculty Thesis Prize from the University of Warwick’s Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine (SEM).

His thesis, titled: ‘Chemical Reaction Discovery with Kinetica.jl – Exploration and Simulation of Chemical Degradation’, introduces a powerful new software tool, Kinetica.jl, which uses machine learning to simulate complex chemical reaction networks (CRNs) more efficiently than traditional methods. This innovation addresses a critical challenge in materials science in helping predict how and when materials change over time under real-world conditions.

Joe’s research was supervised by Mark Storr, AWE Distinguished Specialist, whose expert guidance helped shape the direction and impact of the research.

Joe was recently presented with the Armourers and Brasiers’ Materials Thesis Prize 2025 at the Cambridge Forum, an annual event held at the University of Cambridge to raise the profile of material science in the UK’s academic and industrial communities.

AWE’s Principal Academic Lead, Gareth Cairns, said: “Joe’s work was selected as the standout AWE sponsored material science thesis, setting a high bar by significantly surpassing the initial research goals in both scope and impact. His work not only delivered advanced software capabilities, but also deepened our understanding of the material systems being modelled. Congratulations to Joe on this well-deserved recognition!”

The SEM Faculty Thesis Prize is a highly competitive accolade awarded to exceptional research across the university’s science and engineering disciplines. Joe’s thesis was selected by the departmental committee for its originality, technical excellence, and potential for real-world impact.

Reflecting on his achievement, Joe said: “I am truly honoured to have been awarded both the 2025 AWE Armourers and Brasiers Thesis Prize and the University of Warwick’s SEM Faculty Thesis Prize. It’s fantastic that my work has been recognised by both judging panels and I think it stands as a testament to my supervisors, both at Warwick and at AWE, and to the training I received from the HetSys CDT as part of my doctorate. I hope my work is a valuable stepping stone towards fully understanding chemical degradation across a wide range of molecular systems and materials, and I look forward to exploring new computational solutions to challenging problems in the chemical sciences in the future.”

Congratulations to Joe on this outstanding achievement!