Question: What is so interesting about materials?

Lisa Simmons answered on 10 Nov 2014:

For me materials make up everything in the natural world. In order to progress and optimise what we make we need to gain a deeper understanding of how different elements behave when they are combined, how we can alter them by different processing routes for example what happens when we heat things at different temperatures or if we’re making an alloy if we mix elements if different quantities. My work is centred on this fundamental understanding, I like to think that I put lots of atoms in a box and then find out where they all like to go and then how the material behaves.