Sam Gnaniah joined NPL in 1997 and is part of the Advanced Engineering Materials Group. The mission of the group is to support industry from multiple sectors to facilitate confidence in measurement data and development of best practice to aid innovation, boost the UK economy, quality of life and enable world trade.
Sam’s main expertise lies in the application of thermal properties measurement to aid the understanding of material behaviour from sub ambient to high temperatures. The work supports wide industry sectors using complex and emerging material types. He established the underpinning measurement capability at NPL supporting multiple research divisions across NPL addressing national priority challenges.
Sam has a strong track record of engaging with industry, taking the initiative to establish NPL led industrial Advisory Group (IAG) for the Composites, Adhesives, Polymers sectors and in 2024 launched the Advanced Materials Thermal Characterisation IAG.
Sam is actively engaged in international activities representing UK in the Steering Committee of VAMAS global pre-normative organisation since 2008 and served three terms as its International General Secretary. He Chairs VAMAS Technical Work Area (TWA 43) on Thermal Properties, that acts as a platform to undertake international intercomparison exercises to improve data generation, development of reference materials and test methods to support future international standardisation. Sam represents UK in the Technical Committee of Materials Metrology (TCMM) within the Asia Pacific Metrology Programme (APMP) and led a project to address measurement traceability to the SI units for temperature calibration.
Prior to joining NPL, Sam spent nine years in industry in the thermal analysis and fire testing instrumentation sector in a production and systems test environment. He serves in the Committee of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Thermal Methods Group. Sam is a Chartered Engineer (CEng), and a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM). He has mentored several of his colleagues to gain their professional accreditation via the Institute. He previously represented the IOM3 Advisory Council as the UK Southeast regional representative and currently Chairs the IOM3 Local Affairs Committee (LAC) and the Local Society Forum (LSF) promoting materials, minerals and mining activities across multiple UK regions and beyond.