Dr Pete Osborne

Dr Pete Osborne is the Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), where he plays a leading role in the development of the AMRC‘s technology strategy.

Pete is the Principle Investigator and Director of the EPSRC funded Innovation Launchpad Network+. This network was granted £6.8 million from the EPSRC in 2022 to bring together universities, the Catapult Network and regional innovation ecosystems to accelerate the adoption of knowledge from academia into the wider world. Our primary vehicle for this is the Researchers in Residence scheme which provides funded opportunities for university researchers to collaborate with the Catapults and grow the maturity of new technologies, tools, and techniques.

Pete is also a Co-Investigator in the EPSRC-NERC Centre for Doctoral Training in Offshore wind energy and the environment. Within the CDT, he leads Theme 3: Next generation materials and manufacturing and teaches the first year module on Materials and manufacturing for offshore wind.

Pete has worked at the AMRC for more than 17 years, working on a wide range of industrially focussed research programmes for companies such as Boeing, Rolls-Royce and Siemens Gamesa. In 2013. Pete won a BAE Chairman’s Bronze award for work developing a 3D tool wear measurement approach as part of which enabled them to make multi-million-pound savings on the tooling for the F35 programme. Pete also led the delivery of the AMRC’s contribution to the Rolls-Royce High Performance Disc Manufacturing workstream within the SAMULET programme. This project developed new methods of manufacture for the key disc components within Rolls-Royce’s Trent family of engines which underpinned their decision to build their UK Disc facility in Washington, UK.

Pete obtained his MEng (2002) and PhD (2006) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Sheffield. His PhD investigated the use of ultrasound to measure the contact and sealing of elements within the Regenesys Technologies experimental field cell where he developed a novel method of measuring the sealing performance between elements of the fuel cell stack.