Principal Investigator

Dr Edward McCarthy is Senior Lecturer in Composite Design and Testing at the School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh.

Design and Manufacturing Lead

• Professor Dilum Fernando

Co-Investigators

• Dr Edward McCarthy
• Professor Dilum Fernando
• Professor Tim Stratford
• Professor Luke Bisby
• Professor Spyros A Karamanos

FastBlade Manager and Senior Experimental Officer

Dr Fergus Cuthill has a Masters in Mechanical Engineering with a PhD in snow science and material engineering, completed from 2013 to 2017. After his PhD he was a postdoctoral research associate within the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Materials and Processes, working on two Wave Energy Scotland (WES) funded projects (ELASTO and ROTOHYBRID). His role focused on the mechanical testing, analysis and classification of novel materials for the potential use in wave energy devices with the aim of the research being a step-change in the levelised cost of energy (LCOE). In his current role, he is focused on developing control and testing methodologies along with instrumentation and hydraulic setups for FastBlade.

Data Scientist

Dr Sergio Antonio Lopez Dubon is in charge of developing the facility's data structure and the data analysis's main algorithms. Moreover, he will lead the design and implementation of new data-driven algorithms to improve FastBlade's performance and the study of the different tested specimens. This will reduce the time of new technology transfer, helping FastBlade be at the vanguard of fatigue testing of composites structures. 

Before joining FastBlade, Sergio obtained a civil engineer degree and a master's in hydrology. He worked for a hydrometeorological service for a few years, where he started to handle big data problems. Later, he completed a PhD focused on long-term river morphodynamics, using a physical-statistical modelling approach, which was completed from 2014 to 2018. Following that, he worked in Italy as a data scientist in the industry. His role centred on developing quasi-real-time control algorithms for big data environmental measurements, and the design and implementation of relational algorithms, for data-driven support decisions.  

Engineering Technician

Graham Miller 

He comes from a heavy engineering background with a wealth of experience in electrical power generation, including wind, thermal and energy from waste. Since joining the team, he has been heavily involved with the set-up and commissioning of the facility with a particular emphasis on the set-up of the control, monitoring, and safety systems, along with their associated instrumentation. Graham’s focus is now split between day-to-day maintenance tasks in the facility and the adaptation of our electrical and instrumentation systems to each new test specimen, tailored to our clients' requirements.

Research Assistant in Structural Testing