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Biography
Oliver is an Assistant Professor in Chemical and Environmental Engineering, specialising in leveraging digital technologies to advance a sustainable and inclusive circular economy.
He holds an MEng (University of Nottingham, 2016) and a PhD (University of Nottingham, 2020) in Chemical Engineering. During his doctoral studies, Oliver secured EPSRC funding for an industrial placement at Lindhurst Engineering Ltd., where he led the development of innovative machine learning models to optimise the economic and environmental performance of an industrial bioprocess known as H2AD. In 2019, we was awarded the Tri-Campus Prize for outstanding academic achievement and contribution towards the PGR community. Subsequently, Oliver won a doctoral prize fellowship from the Future Food Beacon of Excellence, University of Nottingham. This fellowship allowed him to extend the impact of his research, focusing on enhancing the sustainability and resilience of agri-food systems.
Between 2020-2022, Oliver worked as a Research Fellow and Knowledge Exchange Lead for Connected Everything, an EPSCR funded digital manufacturing network plus. In 2021, he chaired the 2021 Connected Everything conference, attracting over 170 delegates. From 2022-2023, Oliver was a Research Fellow at the University of Surrey working on ESPRC and Innovate UK funded projects. At Surrey, Oliver led the techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) work package of the Flue2Chem Project, which aimed to develop a new UK supply chain to convert industrial waste gases into sustainable materials for consumer products. Separately, he also worked to develop new AI and machine learning tools to create a digital twin of a net zero biomanufacturing carbon capture and utilisation system. In 2023, Oliver won funding from the UKRI National Circular Economy Research Hub to lead a project to develop a roadmap that embeds equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) considerations into circular carbon economy initiatives.
Expertise Summary
Oliver's expertise lies in interdisciplinary research encompassing both fundamental and applied approaches. His work focuses on engineering innovative digital solutions aimed at substituting fossil-based resources with sustainable alternatives. Through this research, Oliver strives to enable the transition to a sustainable and inclusive circular economy.
His expertise covers topics including: circular economy: digital manufacturing: sustainable process manufacturing; AI and machine learning; and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).
Research Summary
Oliver's research focuses on the addressing the global challenges facing the chemical industry of sustainable clean growth, reduced inequalities and the move to a zero carbon and circular economy. He… read more
Selected Publications
OKECHUKWU OKORIE, JENNIFER RUSSELL, RUTH CHERRINGTON, OLIVER FISHER and FIONA CHARNLEY, 2023. Digital transformation and the circular economy: Creating a competitive advantage from the transition towards Net Zero Manufacturing Resources, Conservation and Recycling. 189, 106756 OLIVER J FISHER, AHMED RADY, ALY AA EL-BANNA, NICHOLAS J WATSON and HAITHAM H EMAISH, 2023. An image processing and machine learning solution to automate Egyptian cotton lint grading Textile Research Journal. 93(11-12), 2558-2575 FISHER, OLIVER J., RADY, AHMED, EL-BANNA, ALY A. A., EMAISH, HAITHAM H. and WATSON, NICHOLAS J., 2023. AI-Assisted Cotton Grading: Active and Semi-Supervised Learning to Reduce the Image-Labelling Burden Sensors. 23(21), XIN YEE TAI, LEI XING, YUE ZHANG, QIAN FU, OLIVER FISHER, STEVE D.R. CHRISTIE and JIN XUAN, 2023. Dynamic optimisation of CO2 electrochemical reduction processes driven by intermittent renewable energy: Hybrid deep learning approach Digital Chemical Engineering. 9, 100123
Current Research
Oliver's research focuses on the addressing the global challenges facing the chemical industry of sustainable clean growth, reduced inequalities and the move to a zero carbon and circular economy. He leads interdisciplinary fundamental and applied research developing engineering and digital solutions to replace fossil-based resources with sustainable alternatives, thereby achieving a future circular economy. Oliver's current areas of research include:
Theme 1: Developing data-driven modelling methodologies using AI and machine learning techniques to simulate, optimise and control circular economy enabling technologies.
Theme 2: Integrating AI and machine learning process models in TEA and LCA models to realise process integration and whole system optimisation.
Theme 3: Speeding up the digitisation of the emerging circular chemical economy.
Theme 4: Creating frameworks to embed equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) into the circular economy transition.
Future Research
I welcome enquiries from potential PhD candidates from Home, EU and international countries who are interested in the following research areas: circular economy: digital chemical engineering: sustainable process manufacturing; AI and machine learning; and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).
If you are an international student, you will need to be self-funded or have/acquire a scholarship. There is an extensive portfolio of Research Scholarships for international students offered by the University and other funding bodies.
If you are interested, please get in contact via email with a CV and cover letter. Applicants should have (or expect to obtain) a first-class or good 2:1 UK honours degree, or a distinction or high merit at MEng/MSc level in Chemical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Computer Science or a related discipline.