Dr Tim Thornber

Tim was born in Singapore but spent his formative years also in Taipei and Cairo before his family settled in Clitheroe, Lancashire, which he considers his hometown. 

After attending Clitheroe Royal Grammar School at GCSE and A-Level, he undertook national service as an Infantry Lieutenant in the Singapore Armed Forces.  Subsequently, he graduated with a BSc in Chemistry at the University of Manchester in 2014, where his final year project was concerned with the synthesis of new ruthenium polypyridyl complexes for dye sensitised solar cells.

Following university, he spent 5 years in industry working at AkzoNobel first as a Development Chemist in the Decorative Paints division at Dulux and subsequently as an Intumescent Paint Technologist in the Fire Protection Department at International Paints.  His research here focused primarily on thermoset resins designed for use in extreme low temperature environments.

Tim moved to Sheffield in late 2020 to embark on his PhD studies under Professor David Lidzey, with a focus on spray coating perovskite solar cells on Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) substrates.  Throughout his PhD, he also contributed to a variety of other projects and spent a 6 month secondment working on thermally evaporated hole transport materials in microgroove architectures with Power Roll Ltd.

Having completed his PhD, he is now employed as a Research Associate in Professor Lidzey’s group working on the development of low mass encapsulation strategies for perovskite devices fabricated on CFRP.  He hopes to use his prior experience in protective coatings, combined with his experience fabricating CFRP-PV devices to help bring integrated CFRP-PV to commercial fruition.

Tim’s interests and hobbies include reading classic and classical literature, cooking in particular Singaporean cuisine, drinking proper rum and hanging out with his dog.