Dr Bartomeu Monserrat
Gianna Angelopoulos Lecturer in Computational Materials Science
Dr Bartomeu Monserrat is the Gianna Angelopoulos Lecturer in Computational Materials Science at the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy of the University of Cambridge. He obtained a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge in 2015 and was then appointed Henslow Research Fellow (2015-19), also at the University of Cambridge. He concurrently held positions as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Rutgers University (USA, 2015-17) and as Winton Advanced Research Fellow (2018-19) at the University of Cambridge.
Bartomeu leads a research group that develops and uses computational tools to discover new materials for technological applications. He frequently works with industrial and public sector partners, and has worked on new alloys for high temperature jet engines with Rolls Royce, on new battery materials with Samsung, and is currently working with Jacobs Solutions and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on new materials for nuclear waste management.
Bartomeu’s scientific contributions have been recognised with the international 2018 Psi-K Volker Heine Young Investigator Award, the national 2021 Maxwell Medal and Prize by the UK Institute of Physics and the national 2022 Young Investigator Award in Theoretical Physics by the Spanish Royal Society of Physics. His discovery that sound propagation in materials has an upper speed limit of 36,000 km/s has received significant publicity from the popular press (full features in 157 outlets, from The Economist to the Daily Mail) and was recognised as a Top 10 Physics Breakthrough of 2020 by Physics World.
Beyond research, Bartomeu is the creator and co-host of a YouTube channel teaching quantum mechanics to a global audience. In three years, the channel has received more than 800,000 views with over 50,000 hours of watch time, which is more than the cumulative number of student-hours taught in a typical career at Cambridge University.