Professor Ifan Stephens is a Research Area Lead for Atoms to Devices at the Henry Royce Institute. He also serves as the Institute’s Co-Chair for the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee.
Ifan conducted his PhD at the University of Cambridge. In 2008, he moved to the Department of Physics at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), where he was first employed as a postdoctoral researcher, then appointed Assistant Professor, and later Associate Professor. In 2015, he was awarded the Peabody Visiting Associate Professorship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Ifan joined the Department of Materials at Imperial College London in 2017, where he is now Professor of Electrochemistry and Leader of Imperial’s Electrochemistry Network. His research focuses on enabling the large-scale electrochemical conversion of renewable energy to fuels, chemicals, and materials, as well as developing next-generation batteries. His group studies and designs catalyst and electrode materials that underpin sustainable energy technologies.
Ifan has published over 120 papers on topics including oxygen reduction and evolution, CO₂ reduction, nitrogen reduction, and electrochemical energy storage. He collaborates closely with industry partners such as bp, Johnson Matthey, Ucaneo, SpectroInlets, Haldor Topsoe, NitroVolt, and Teer Coatings to accelerate the translation of electrochemical innovations from lab to market. He has co-led major research roadmaps for the Henry Royce Institute (2020) and the Energy-X consortium for the European Commission (2019). His research on H₂O₂ electrosynthesis led to the founding of the spin-out company HPNow. He currently holds a European Research Council Consolidator Grant (NitroScission) to investigate electrochemical nitrogen reduction to ammonia.
Ifan has been listed as a Clarivate Highly Cited Scientist since 2022 and has received the Royal Society of Chemistry’s John Jeyes Award (2021) and Geoffrey Barker Medal (2024). He is also deeply committed to outreach and widening participation, working with programmes such as In2ScienceUK and the Mullany Fund to inspire and support the next generation of scientists and engineers
