Dr Joanne Sharp (she/her)

School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering

EPSRC Open Fellow

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joanne.h.sharp@sheffield.ac.uk
Sir Robert Hadfield Building

Full contact details

Dr Joanne Sharp
School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering
Sir Robert Hadfield Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
Profile

I am currently working on an EPSRC Open Fellowship that runs until 2031 on defects in beryllide materials for fusion. Before this I had a long and peripatetic early career stage. I started in electron microscopy technique development during my PhD at Cambridge (awarded 2010), then did analytical electron microscopy at the University of Sheffield for 10 years working on almost the whole solid periodic table, from ceramics to coatings to alloys and then some more on alloys.

After that I worked on beryllium and its alloys for fusion at the University of Huddersfield, using in-situ ion irradiation to find out what happened on the nanoscale when it was irradiated with helium. The answer was so interesting I wrote a fellowship project to figure it out. In between Huddersfield and this fellowship, I also worked on steels at Birmingham and various other fusion materials with UKAEA.

Research interests

My research centres on understanding defects in the crystal structure of titanium beryllide, a candidate material to help dynamically generate more fuel in large nuclear fusion reactors as they operate. These crystal defects change with temperature so we need to research the nature and effects of these changes, to make sure that the material will stay safe and stable in the breeder modules that contain them in any event such as a building fire that makes them exceed their normal operating temperature.

Key research interests:

  • Nuclear fusion
  • Nuclear materials
  • Radiation effects on materials
  • Electron microscopy
  • Transmission electron microscopy
  • Diffraction
Publications

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Teaching activities

I will be looking for PhD students later in 2026 - watch this space!

Professional activities and memberships
  • Member of Institute of Physics
  • Member of the IoP's Electron Microscopy and Analysis Group committee