Meet the Team

Dr Daniel Pugh is a lecturer at Cardiff University specialising in fluid dynamics, undertaking research into the development and characterisation of alternative fuels for transport and power generation.

Steve Morris is a Chartered Engineer with over 25 years experience as a Mechanical Engineer with broad project management and facility management experience.

Jack Thomas is a Technician at Cardiff University's Gas Turbine Research Centre (GTRC). He started as an apprentice following completing a pathways to apprenticeships Engineering course. He has since achieved a HNC in mechanical engineering, a Nebosh qualification in occupational Health and Safety and is a member of the Institute of mechanical engineers. His roles at the GTRC include experimental set-up and commissioning of the rigs and is a member of the testing team.

Dr Yokoi joined the School of Engineering at Cardiff University after postdoctoral studies at RIKEN, UCLA, University of Cambridge and UCSB.

He received his Ph.D in Mathematics at Hokkaido University and works in a number of scientific computing areas, mainly computational fluid dynamics and machine learning.

Prof Marsh is a thermal and process engineer, specialising in gas turbines, and renewable oxidation / gasification technologies for biomass energy and manufacturing. He focuses on large industrial energy research, in particular, the deployment of renewable fuels such as hydrogen, waste and biomass derived fuels and industrial feedstocks. He has led a number of large EU and RCUK funded research projects, examining the use of renewable fuels and novel technologies for carbon capture. He is the Cardiff University lead for the CDT in resilient decarbonised fuel energy systems, with a portfolio of more than £10M funding since 2007. He is currently a co-investigator on two EPSRC Network+ projects examining carbon capture and carbon sustainable aviation fuel.

Agustin Valera-Medina is a Professor at Cardiff School of Engineering, U.K. He has participated as PI/Co-I in 29 industrial projects with multinationals including PEMEX, Rolls-Royce, Siemens, Ricardo, Airbus, and BP, attracting approximately £12.4M in research. He has published 181 papers (h-index 26), 46 of these specifically concerning ammonia for power. He has supervised 28 PhD students, 9 on ammonia-combustion related topics. Dr. Valera-Medina led Cardiff’s contribution to the Innovate-UK “Decoupled Green Energy” Project (2015–2018) led by Siemens and in partnership with STFC and the University of Oxford, which aimed to demonstrate the use of green ammonia produced from wind energy. He is currently PI of the project SAFE-AGT (EP/T009314/1, £1.9M) to demonstrate the use of ammonia as an efficient gas turbine fuel. He leads the combustion work package of the H2020 project FLEXnCONFU (884157), a €12.7M project conceived to demonstrate ammonia power in large turbine engines. He is also PI and co-I of projects related to ammonia for transportation, propulsion, and heat/cooling (including OceanRefuel, MariNH3, Dock2Dock, Ammonia Optimization, Ambust, etc.). He has been part of various scientific boards, chairing sessions in international conferences and moderating large industrial panels on the topic of “Ammonia for Direct Use.” He supported the preparation of two Royal Society Policy Briefings on “Green Ammonia”. He is currently chair of the "Combustion and Emissions" working group of the Ammonia Energy Association, and co-Director of the Green Ammonia Working Group UK. He is the main author of the book 'Techno-economic challenges of ammonia as energy vector' (Elsevier).

Professor Phil Bowen is Director of Cardiff University's Gas Turbine Research Centre. He worked in the private Energy Sector for 5 years before joining Cardiff University in 1994. He has published over 200 papers and been an investigator on over £30M of research contracts. He is currently a member of the RCUK Strategic Advisory Committee (SAC) on Energy and the IEA Technology Collaboration Programme in 'Clean and Efficient Combustion'. He was DIrector of Cardiff School of Engineering 2012-2015 and is a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, IMechE and Institute of Physics.