Team

Mark Taylor  BE(Hons), PhD, MIChemE, C.Eng

Centre Director

Mark graduated from Auckland University in 1984 with a PhD in Chemical and Materials Engineering.

His career with the Comalco organisation spanned 18 years in a variety of research, technical and operational roles.

He commenced at the Comalco Research Centre in Melbourne, moving into plant management at New Zealand Aluminium Smelters, Tiwai, Invercargill. During this time, Dr. Taylor was the Implementation Manager for the $450m smelter upgrade and then Potroom Manager. Following this he managed the smelter for a six month period before transferring to Brisbane.

As General Manager Technical, Dr Taylor directed Comalco's reduction research and development and provided technical support to Comalco's three operational smelters. Mark was appointed General Manager Operations in 2000 to Comalco's largest smelting operation, Boyne Smelters Ltd in Central Queensland.

Mark returned to the University of Auckland in January 2003 as the Director, Light Metals Research Centre and is engaged in light metals research and consulting globally. He has over 40 publications.

Associate Professor Jim Metson  BSc(Hons), PhD, FNZIC, MRSNZ, MTMS

Associate Director

Associate Professor Metson completed his PhD at Victoria University of Wellington in 1980. After a period as a staff Scientist at Surface Science Western, the University of Western Ontario, Canada, he moved to The University of Auckland late in 1985. In addition to his appointment in the Department of Chemistry he has since held positions as Director of the Research Centre for Surface and Materials Science, Acting Director of the Light Metals Research Centre during its formation. In addition he held the position of Associate Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) for the University between 2000 and 2002.

His research work, largely based in surface and materials science, has involved extensive contact with the aluminium industry, including involvement in the development of a new dry-scrubbing technology and studies of cell emissions, electrolyte chemistry and electrode reactivity. He has presented many papers at the TMS Light Metals Conference and was a Light Metals award winner in 1994. He was also winner of the New Zealand 1995 Shell Prize for Industrial Chemistry.

He has presented more than 20 plenary or keynote lectures, has over 100 research publications and sixty technical reports, many dealing with applications in the aluminium industry.

Dr. Margaret H. Hyland  PhD, MRSNZ, MTMS

Margaret Hyland graduated with a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada in 1989, and is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the University of Auckland. She has been active in aluminium reduction technology research for more than 15 years, working with major international aluminium producres and suppliers.

Her areas of interest are in environmental emissions and capture; chemical and mechanical properties of cathode and anode materials and development of new materials. She has presented numerous papers at the TMS Annula Conference and is the winner of 4 TMS Awards in Carbon and Reduction Technology in 2004, 2001 and 1997. Dr Hyland has published over 60 papers and over 80 technical reports. She is also winner of the 2003 Distinguished Lecturer Award, for the Faculty of Engineering.

Professor John JJ Chen  BE, PhD, FRSNZ, FIChemE

John JJ Chen is Professor of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the University of Auckland. After obtaining his BE degree from the University of Auckland, he worked for three years as a Potrooms Development Engineering at New Zealand Aluminium Smelters. He then returned to Auckland and completed a PhD in 1979. He has published over 170 papers in international journals and conference proceedings, one patent and over 60 proprietary research reports. He is on the Light Metals Division and the Aluminium Committee of TMS. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, the Institution of Chemical Engineers(London), and the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand.

He has received Merit Awards and Best Teachers Awards in the School of Engineering, and awards for best paper from TMS and IPENZ.

Professor Chen's research interests include the modelling of the aluminium smelting process, the treatment of molten metal, and process control in the potrooms. He has been for many years at the forefront of multiphase flows and related transport processes. Professor Chen's research team was the first to quantify the impact of bubble driven flows on current efficiency in aluminium smelting cells and the first to identify and measure the increase in sidewall heat transfer coefficient opposite the bath/metal interface due to the waves in the metal layer impinging on the wall.

Dr. Bryony James  B.Eng(Hons)Bath, PhDAuck, MRSNZ

Dr James completed her PhD at the University of Auckland in 1997 having conducted research into the degradation of cathode carbons for aluminium smelting cells.  She received the Carbon Technology Award at TMS in 2001 for work conducted jointly with Professor Welch and Dr Hyland on cathode degradation. 

Her research expertise lies in materials characterisation, in terms of structure and composition, at both the surface and bulk level.  She has published 6 refereed journal articles and 13 papers in refereed conference proceedings in addition to 12 other publications and over 200 technical reports.

She is currently the Director of the Research Centre for Surface and Materials Science, RCSMS.  RCSMS is a cross-faculty research centre offering materials characterisation instrumentation and expertise, including state-of-the-art facilities for X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy.  Users of the RCSMS facilities come from various departments throughout the University of Auckland, predominantly from the Faculties of Science and Engineering, and from other Universities around NZ and the rest of the world.  In addition to this  RCSMS operates commercially, consulting with over 40 companies each year. 

Centre's Staff Team