Professor Kevin M. Ryan was appointed to the role of Vice President for Research at the University of Limerick, in January 2025
Previous experience and education
Kevin Ryan is a full Professor of Chemical Nanotechnology at the School of Chemical Sciences and Chemical Engineering at the University of Limerick and is the outgoing Director of the Bernal Institute. He is a native of Limerick and graduated with a BSc in 1999 and a PhD in 2003 in Chemistry from University College Cork. He subsequently held Marie Curie Fellowship positions at Merck Chemicals Southampton, UK and at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, prior to joining University of Limerick in 2006 as a Marie Curie return fellow. He obtained a Science Foundation Ireland Stokes lectureship in 2008 and was promoted to Senior lecturer in 2013 and Personal Chair in 2018. He was an elected member of the Governing Authority of the University from 2019-2022 in the Professor/Associate Professor constituency. He has also held the role of course director for the Pharmaceutical and Industrial Chemistry for 8 years (2010-2018)
Research/Professional interests
Kevin’s research group are based in the Bernal Institute with research emphasis on advanced materials development for rechargeable batteries with a focus on performance gains from incorporation of nanomaterials as active components. He has published over 200 research papers and is holder of 10 patents and has graduated 26 PhD students. He has secured over €12 million in individual research funding from National, EU and Industry sources. He has coordinated large consortium projects in Horizon 2020 including the Neillsbat and Si-Drive projects where significant gains in energy density were achieved by incorporating silicon nanowires developed in UL as the anode for lithium-ion Batteries. He is currently leading the SiGNE Horizon Europe project where a silicon graphite composite is being scaled to battery pack level for electric vehicles with contributions from 16 academic and industry partners in the European battery value chain including Analog Devices, Ferrari, Stellantis, Solvionic and Delfort. Nationally, he has secured three prestigious SFI Investigator Awards on development of synthetic routes for compound semiconductor nanocrystals and nanowires and their applications in energy storage and energy conversion. He is an awardee of the Irish Research Council Laureate in the Advanced Category for a project focusing on new routes to colloidal nanocrystal assembly. He is co-principal investigator on Research Ireland centres AMBER & MaREI and funded Investigator on the UL hosted Research Ireland centre SSPC. He led a UL consortium for funding for AMPEiRE (The National Rechargeable Battery Fabrication Centre) that was launched in 2024 and funded jointly by Research Ireland and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. He sits on the advanced materials working group for Batteries European Patnership Association (BEPA) to develop key performance indicators for next stage battery research in Europe. His publications and activities can be found at https://pure.ul.ie/en/persons/kevin-m-ryan