Meet the TWI Team at DVD 2024

Rory recently joined TWI as the Associate Director of Key Accounts & Sectors. He will serve as the focal point for business development across the group and identify opportunities for TWI’s technology experts to meet its members’ technical challenges.

Rory is an accomplished business leader and strategist with over 30 years of industry experience in capital equipment in-service support and asset management. In the last 20 years, Rory has been at a senior level, holding directorial positions in operations and sales and as a managing director. During his career, Rory has worked with most of the major UK defence companies, gained awards for achieving operational excellence, and helped companies grow organically.

Dr Charlotte Blake is the Senior Defence Sector Manager for Aerospace clients at TWI as well as the Equipment, Consumables and Materials sector. With a technical background in Additive Manufacturing, Charlotte has worked across Powder Bed Fusion, Powder Directed Energy Deposition, and EHLA technologies. After leading management of the Manufacturing Metrology Team at the University of Nottingham and the Midlands Centre for Data-Driven Metrology, Charlotte returned to TWI in 2022 to join the Membership team and focus on ensuring maximum benefit for new and existing members of TWI in her sectors. Charlotte is passionate about STEM outreach and has contributed to many programs in the past, including Pint of Science, Soapbox Science and People Like Me. 

Dr Melissa Riley has a B.Med.Sc degree in Biomaterials, and PhD in Metallurgy and Materials from the University of Birmingham, in magnetic materials for medical and dental applications. Melissa is a Consultant within TWI’s Surfacing, Corrosion and Interface Engineering team. She has worked at TWI for over 21 years on a wide range of projects for TWI’s Industrial Members relating to the development and application of thermal spray coatings, and other coating technologies.

Her work has included application and performance evaluation of wear and corrosion resistant coatings, ceramic coatings, bearing materials and more novel coatings and applications, including leading TWI’s work on the development of coatings on composites, where she has led development of coatings for lightning strike protection, EM shielding and functional coatings such as metasurfaces for aerospace and defence applications. She has also been instrumental in setting up a number of new facilities to support TWI Members in the upscaling and manufacturing development of surface engineering technologies for industrial applications and assess coating performance.

Melissa is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.