Nuclear safeguards, contamination monitoring, radiation imaging, environmental assay, robotic deployment.

Malcolm Joyce is Distinguished Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Lancaster University and interim Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise.  He was previously Cross-faculty Associated Dean for Research (ADR) and ADR for the Faculty of Science and Technology and, as Head of Engineering (2008-2015) he led a significant expansion of the department at Lancaster including the introduction of Chemical Engineering.  Prior to Lancaster he spent 4 years in industry most recently as Technical Director of his spin-out business, Hybrid Instruments Ltd.

Malcolm pioneered nuclear engineering at Lancaster, establishing programmes covering nuclear research, teaching and engagement.  He has a track record of over £25M in competitively sought research grants from UKRI, industry and government agencies.  Recent examples of research published by Malcolm and his team include: uranium enrichment measurement for in-factory applications (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2024.169191), digitial twin opportunities for nuclear fuel manufacturing (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2024.113013) and nuclear cogeneration of methanol and acetaldehyde (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.3c03317).  He is currently Principal Investigator on: 'Capture gamma-ray Assessment in Nuclear Energy' (C-GANE, EP/X038327.1, £1.6M)', 'Autonomous Inspection for Responsive and Sustainable Nuclear Fuel Manufacture' (AIRS-NFM, EP/V051059/1, £1.9M); 'Advancing Location Accuracy via Collimated Nuclear Assay for Decommissioning Robotic Applications' (ALACANDRA, EP/V026941/1, £1.5M) and 'AMS-UK: A UK Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility for Nuclear Fission Research' (EPSRC, EP/T01136X/1, NNUF phase 3, £2.8M).  

Malcolm's research group currently comprises 4 post-doctoral research associates, 1 Experimental Officer and 4 research students.  He is author on > 350 articles and sole author on Engineering impact case studies submitted to both REF2014 and REF2021.

Malcolm is Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science and the European Journal of Physics N (EPJ-N).  He serves on the UK Government's Nuclear Industry Research Advisory Board (NIRAB), the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), the UKAEA Programme Advisory Committee and is co-chair of the National Nuclear User Facility (NNUF).  

He was awarded the James Watt medal by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in 2014 and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award in 2016.  He is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Nuclear Institute and author of: 'Nuclear Engineering: A Conceptual Guide to Nuclear Power', published by Butterworth-Heinemann in 2017.

Malcolm welcomes proposals for PhD study in the areas of radiation detection and measurement, and isotopic monitoring techniques relating to the environmental assessment of radiological consequences.