Professor Hodgson's academic specialism is in materials engineering, focusing on the design and development of new process technologies for advanced materials.
Just as the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th century was founded on a step change in our understanding of engineering on a large scale, the technological breakthroughs of the 21st century will be largely dependent on our ability to engineer properties and performance from the bottom up, by engineering at the atomic, molecular, or particulate scale.
Professor Hodgson's lecture provided an introduction to this, often hidden world, and discussed some of the key future challenges and opportunities it offers, drawing on a range of examples of his research spanning the aerospace, electronics, optoelectronics and biomedical engineering sectors.