IAS Friends and Fellows Coffee Morning

On Wednesday 3 June we will be hosting an IAS Friends and Fellows Coffee Morning, where we will welcome current IAS Residential Fellow Professor Danny O’Brien and Loughborough-Leicester Fellow Professor Anongnat Somwangthanaroj.

Please feel free to book and come along and join us for an informal in-person gathering at International House with coffee and cakes to meet our Fellows, all are welcome.

Professor Danny O’Brien, Bond University

Danny O’Brien is a Professor and Director, Higher Degree Research, at Bond Business School, Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia. He is a graduate of Australian Catholic University; California State University, Long Beach; and, De Montfort University, England. Danny teaches in the areas of event management, surf industry studies and international sport business.

His primary research interest is in sustainable surf tourism and its ability to contribute to community capacity building, particularly in developing countries. His other research interests explore event leverage, and strategic management in sport. Each of Danny’s research areas shares a common sport-for-development thread and the aim to assist stakeholders in realising community building outcomes through sport.

Professor Anongnat Somwangthanaroj, Chulalongkorn University

Prof. Anongnat (Annie) Somwangthanaroj is a project leader of the CLEANET (Collaborative Leadership in Electrochemistry and Advanced Materials Networks for Energy Transformation) initiative and the Thai–UK Bio-Circular-Green Technology Research Collaboration under the UK–Thailand World-Class University Consortium (British Council). She has supervised over 70 graduate theses and serves as Advisor to the Bio-Circular-Green Technology Centre.

As part of collaborative battery research teams in Thailand, she specialises in the design of membranes for zinc-based batteries supporting long-duration energy storage aligned with Thailand and the UK’s net-zero goals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she led rapid-response teams to deliver Thailand’s first PPE virus barrier testing system and the CUre Air Sure, the reusable respirator. Co-founded through her spin-out Cure Enterprise, the respirator won the 2021 Good Design Award, reached over 300 hospitals, and was later featured by WIPO as a global innovation case study. Based on this expertise, she has been selected as a Royal Academy of Engineering Leader in Innovation Fellow.