Serena Corr

Corr grew up in Clonmel and attended Presentation Secondary School.^[2] She studied chemistry at Trinity College Dublin.^[3] She completed her doctoral work on magnetic structured materials (nanoparticles and quantum dots for biomedical applications) with Yurii Gun'ko.^[4] She focussed on nanomaterials that could be used for biomedical applications.^[5] Corr worked on several outreach programs during her PhD. She joined the University of California, Santa Barbara, working with Ram Seshadri on vanadate metal-insulator transitions from 2007 to 2009.^[3][6] She worked on rutile vanadium oxide.^[6][7] They also explored molybdenum dioxide materials that demonstrated reversible lithium storage capacity.^[8]

As a student, Serena was heavily involved in the Maths Department in Trinity College Dublin, acting as a course administrator for Tim Murphy's 061 Practical Computing course^{[citation needed]}.

Corr was made a lecturer at the University of Kent.^[3] She spent her first year writing papers and proposals for the Diamond Light Source and ISIS neutron source.^[5][9] Her early work considered ways to design nanostructured materials using organometallic precursors.^[10][11] She demonstrated that magnetic nanoparticles could be used as MRI contrast agents.^[12] She held a visiting professorship at the University of Otago^{[citation needed]}.

Corr joined the University of Glasgow as a lecturer in 2013 and was made a professor in 2018.^[3] She took part in the science communication competition I'm a Scientist, Get me out of here!.^[13] In 2014 she collaborated with Eleanor Schofield to conserve the Mary Rose.^[14] She developed multi-functional magnetic nano-composites that could remove the iron ions within waterlogged wood.^[14]

In 2013 she edited a chapter for Nanomedicine, Magnetic Nanoparticles for Targeted Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy.^[15] Her group look at new insertion electrodes for energy storage.^[16] These were formed from nanoparticles, which house lithium ions that can be moved between the cathode and anode.^[17] She showed that shape and size of the nanoparticles can impact their electrochemical properties.^[17] She uses fast microwave processing and alkoxides for continuous chemical synthesis of next generation battery materials.^[17][18] In 2015 she was awarded a £1.2 million Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grant to investigate the reliability of these materials in devices.^[19] This involves studying the structure of electrodes and dynamics of ion movement.^[20][21] In 2017 she was made a Training Champion for the Faraday Institution, an academia – industry response to the Faraday Battery Challenge.^[22][23] Her research on battery longevity and how Lithium-ion batteries degrade was covered by The Daily Telegraph.^[24]

In 2017 Corr was selected as a Royal Society of Chemistry Journal of Materials Chemistry lecturer.^[3][25] She joined the University of Sheffield as a chair in Functional Materials and Professor in Chemical and Biological Engineering in 2018, serving as head of department.^[2][26][27] She serves on the management board of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council doctoral training centre in energy storage.^[28] She is an associate editor of Royal Society of Chemistry journal Nanoscale and the IOP Publishing journal Progress in Energy.^[29][30] In 2019 she gave talks about the chemistry of batteries at the Royal Institution.^[31] In 2021 she gave evidence at House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee for its inquiry into the role of batteries in achieving net zero.^[32]

In 2023 she was the winner of the Royal Society of Chemistry's Interdisciplinary Prize.^[2] In April 2024, she moved to University College Dublin as Professor of Materials Chemistry.^[1] She is a member of the scientific advisory board for the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research.^[33]