Professor Andrew Whittaker
Researcher biography
Professor Andrew Whittaker is Deputy Director International and Senior Group Leader in AIBN. He directs research funded through more than $53 million in competitive grants since 2002. Professor Whittaker's work in synthesis and characterisation of polymeric materials has underpinned major development programs in several key areas. In the field of materials for photolithography this has been supported by funding from leading semiconductor companies Intel, Sematech and the Dow Chemical Company. Outcomes include novel high-index resists for 193 nm immersion lithography, new concepts for design of non-chemically amplified resists for EUV lithography, and more recently novel approaches to healing roughness in IC features. In the field of biomaterials science, Professor Whittaker is most active in developing novel imaging agents for MRI, and introduced a new class of 19F polymeric agents. He is an expert in the fundamentals of diffusion process in complex solids. He has an international reputation in the field of NMR and MRI of polymeric systems.
International links
Professor Whittaker is a member of numerous international committees of governing bodies in polymer science and technology,and is involved in organising major international conferences. He is past-president of the Pacific Polymer Federation. He has active collaborations with scientists at Nagoya Institute of Technology (NIT), Japan; Hubei University, NCNST and Shanghai University, China; the University of Nottingham, UK; IMEC, Belgium; Dow Electronic Materials, US; and the Intel Corporation, US. He has held visiting professor positions at INSA Lyon and NIT and was DICE Chair at University of Nottingham, and is currently visiting professor at Hubei University.