COATED M2A Making an Impact at Swansea University
The COATED M2A Annual Conference 2026 brought together postgraduate researchers to showcase their work to academics, industry partners, funders, and alumni. The event featured poster sessions, 60-second pitches, and detailed platform presentations. For the second year running, women engineers outnumbered men in platform presentations, highlighting continued progress toward gender balance in engineering.
This year’s conference recognised three outstanding contributions:
- Best Presentation: Elin Worsley (COATED M2A) for “The scale up challenge of perovskite PV modules: lowering the cost of laser scribing” (Tata Steel UK)
- Best Poster: Ehsan Akbari Kharaji (COATED M2A) for “Coating Network and Barrier Property Design Strategies for Protection Against Hydrogen Embrittlement” (AkzoNobel)
Best Poster (Student Vote): Ross Williams (M2RI) for “Do Beetles have Biomineral Armour” (Zeiss)
COATED M2A researchers continued to present their work at the PGR Festival. Charlie Fricker won FSE Best Poster (Student Vote) for a wonderful comic-style creation on “The Mystery of the Missing Protein” and progressed to the PGR Showcase. April Tang presented on her gas sensor work, while Beth Miles earned a place in the Swansea 3 Minute Thesis Final with her presentation on perovskites. Freya Hamblin, Anna Voytyukova, and Beth Miles were also nominated for PGR awards recognising culture, community, and public engagement. ( PGR award nominees).
Further success came at the We Innovate Final, where Hannah Pinney and Anna Voytyukova pitched their business ideas for a share of £30,000. Hannah focused on outdoor sauna experiences, while Anna proposed recovering titanium dioxide from coil coatings to support net zero goals.
Together, these achievements demonstrate the innovation, creativity, and impact of the COATED M2A community at Swansea University.
