Dr Jose Alarco BSc, PhD – Principal Scientist
Dr Alarco co-founded the Very Small Particle Company and ScienceWorks Consultants after spending five years as a senior research scientist at the University of Queensland. He is a materials scientist with a strong academic and industrial research career. Dr Alarco has published widely in the fields of superconductors, ceramics, and properties and characterisation of microstructures. He is co-author of patents covering nanoscale complex metal oxide processing and products.
Dr John Bradley, PhD – Senior Research Scientist
Dr Bradley joined VSPC in March 2010 and has a background in electrochemistry, solid state chemistry and materials science. His research areas have included oxide ion conductors, carbon fuel cells and metal oxide electrodes. Dr Bradley has designed a number of laboratories, including the first hydrogen compliant testing laboratory and the solid state chemistry and electrochemistry laboratories at the University of Queensland.
Dr Jawahar Nerkar, PhD – Research Scientist
Dr. Jawahar Nerkar joined VSPC in May 2011. He graduated in Polymer Engineering in 2001 from University of Purdue, India and completed a Masters degree in Materials Science and Engineering in 2004 from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He received a PhD from CSIRO-Energy Technology and University of Newcastle. He has a background in physical, structural and electrochemical characterisation of electrode materials for Li-ion battery and Supercapacitor applications. He also has experience in the manufacture of electrodes and the fabrication of Coin-type test cells.
Dr Rulande Henderson, PhD – Consultant
Dr Rulande Henderson is a Chemical Engineer from Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) with a PhD in Polymer Processing from The University of Cambridge, UK. Her 16 years industrial and academic career testifies of her broad and international project management experience, her skills in process scale up – including experience in a successful startup company – and her understanding and experience of product commercialisation issues.
Timothy Hourigan, BEng(Hons) & BPhotNanSc(Hons) – Research Scientist
Mr Hourigan joined VSPC in February 2007 . He has been involved with all aspects of the Research & Development and Production of LFP from an early stage at VSPC. More recently he has been involved in the manufacturing of electrodes and coin cells as a part of the quality control of VSPC’s battery material.
Joshua Watts, BPhotNanSc(Hons) – Research Scientist
Mr Watts began work at VSPC in November 2009 and primarily works with materials development. After completing his undergraduate degree in Photonics and Nanoscience (Hons) at Griffith University he then went on to work at the University of Queensland where he began a research division for DSSC (dye-sensitised solar cell) research and development. Whilst there he commissioned a fully functional DSSC construction, testing a characterisation laboratory.
John David Sherwood, BSc(Hons) DIS, CEng, CSci – Consultant
Mr Sherwood is VSPC’s technical expert on powder processing equipment and particle sizing, commencing working for VSPC in March 2010. A Chemical Engineer with over thirty years experience, he previously worked at AstraZeneca where, as the international milling consultant, he was responsible for the development, technology transfer, design and installation of many milling processes for sales and development compounds. Mr Sherwood has extensive knowledge of many chemical technologies. He is author of a patent covering the physical form of a crystalline product for use in an inhalation device and has published a number of papers on particle sizing.