Professor Michael Shaver is the Research Area lead for the Royce Chemical Material Design Research Area
Prof. Mike Shaver graduated from Mt. Allison University with a BSc (Honours), first learning how to use a Schlenk line from Steve Westcott. He then went west to pursue a PhD from the University of British Columbia under the direction of Mike Fryzuk. After an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship at Imperial College London with Vernon Gibson, Mike accepted a faculty position at UPEI in a reverse-culture-shock-homecoming of sorts. After a productive 5 years on PEI, he decided to leave for pastures new and accepted a Chancellor’s Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh. He was promoted to Professor and a Personal Chair in Polymer Chemistry in 2017. Soon after, he was recruited to join the Department of Materials at the University of Manchester, along with a role in the new Henry Royce Institute where he will champion sustainable materials. This new position is a departure from the chemical traditions of his training, but recognises the increasingly important real-world applications of this science.
In 2020 Prof Shaver successfully led a bid to the European Regional Development Fund to develop the Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub to support SME across Greater Manchester to address sustainable plastic challenges.
