Dr Neil Phillips

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Role:

Senior Research Fellow

Department staff:

Position:Senior Research Fellow
Department:College of Arts, Technology and Environment FET - Computer Science and Creative Technologies
Email:Neil.Phillips@uwe.ac.uk
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About me

I am a researcher and educator with an abiding interest in how things work and how they can be improved. Understanding the technology behind systems, how it can be adapted or enhanced. I enjoy the challenge of devising unconventional solutions by combining scientific methods and non-intuitive thinking. Member of Centre for Environment, Society and Resilience (CESR) which aims to deliver world-class interdisciplinary research across all environmental issues that contributes to creating a more resilient natural and human environment in the face of current and future challenges.

Area of expertise

Research Interests:
My research focuses on practical, interdisciplinary approaches to environmental sustainability, including strategies to mitigate global warming. I work across environmental management and sustainable development, and I also explore unconventional and biomimetic computing/engineering approaches that can inspire new solutions to complex real‑world challenges.

Key interests include:

Water & sustainability: Water and wastewater systems, environmental management and climate adaptation, microplastics and emerging contaminants, citizen science and participatory monitoring, sustainable space habitats, and global warming mitigation, with a focus on financially viable solutions.

Unconventional & bio-inspired technologies: Biomimicry and bio-inspired design, unconventional computing as alternative information-processing paradigms, TRIZ and inventive problem-solving methods, soft and living-matter inspiration (including slime as a model complex medium), liquid marbles as bio-inspired/physics-enabled micro-systems, and rapid prototyping plus proof-of-concept evaluation of unconventional approaches.

Energy & Electrical Power Systems: Expertise spanning bioenergy and bioreactors, renewable generation and hybrid architectures, power conversion (power electronics) and control, embedded electronics, pulsed‑power applications, brushless drive systems, and robust multi‑domain integration from component to system level.

Smart materials & processing: Mycelium-based materials and composites, biosensing as a functional smart-material/device capability, biodegradable polymers for 3D printing and sustainable fabrication, high-temperature superconductors and advanced functional materials, vacuum drying and low-energy processing routes, and Marimo explored as a biologically derived functional structure and materials platform.

Research identifiers:

ORCID: 0000-0002-7878-0196

Scopus Author ID: 57193349395

Research Projects:

Vice-Chancellor's Challenge Award for Freezing Global Warming project: https://freezingglobalwarming.org/

Marimo Rover an autonomous, low‑cost, photosynthetically powered mobile device that uses algae to generate oxygen for propulsion. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13036-021-00279-0

Monitoring and filtering of aquatic environments with Marimo https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-025-37259-6

Co-I of PhySense project under H2020 Future & Emerging Technologies Launchpad grant. Commercialise a novel environmental sensing platform.

PhD Supervision:
I welcome PhD applications in areas including (but not limited to):

· Unconventional systems and solutions (including biomimetic and nature inspired approaches)

· Mitigating Global Warming

· Bioenergy

· Microplastics

· Sustainable space exploration

· TRIZ and systematic innovation methods

If you’re considering a proposal, I’m happy to discuss early ideas and help shape them into a robust research plan.

Visiting Scholar & Collaboration:

I am happy to host visiting scholars and welcome collaboration with colleagues and partners from diverse disciplines. I’m particularly interested in interdisciplinary projects that connect sustainability challenges with bio‑inspired engineering approaches.

Publications

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