Gavin Walker

Professor Walker was appointed as the Bernal Chair of Pharmaceutical Poweder Engineering at the University of Limerick in 2012.  He is also a Visiting Research Professor of Chemical Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast (UK). Professor Walker has been awarded >€37m in research funding from SFI, EI, EPSRC (UK), TSB (UK), EU FP7, H2020 and industry sources. He is currently the leading principal investigator in three national programmes, the Synthesis and Solid State Pharmaceutical Centre (SSPC), the EI Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Technology Centre (PMTC) and the EI Dairy Processing Technology Centre (DPTC).

His research interests include particle/powder technology, process modelling and pharmaceutical engineering and currently has 35 researchers within his group. He has published over 200 international journal papers (>9600 citations, h-index 45) on various aspects of chemical and process engineering and is associate editor of Chemical Engineering Journal and Chemical Engineering Research and Design (focusing on material processing). Professor Walker has been awarded two Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) fellowships: the ExxonMobil Fellowship in 2002 and the Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship in 2009. In 2017 he was appointed Scientific Director of SFI funded Synthesis and Solid State Pharmaceutical Centre (SSPC). Professor Walker is also Director of the H2020 MSCA Co-Fund “PROCESS” 2018-2022 funding 26 Research Fellows in process engineering.

He is currently the Associate Editor of Chemical Engineering Journal and Chemical Engineering Research and Design (focusing on material processing).  In 2017, he helped spin out “IP2 Innovative Particle Processing” for cross-sectoral powder engineering consultancy with the University of Limerick.

Prof Walker’s research group was awarded the National Pharmaceutical Lab of the Year, Chemical Lab of the Year and Overall Academic – Research Lab of the Year in the 2017 Irish Lab Awards and Engineering Lab of the Year, Irish Lab Awards 2019.

Additional Links


Madden, D.G., Albadarin, A.B., O’Nolan, D., Cronin, P., Perry, J.J., Solomon, S., Curtin, T., Khraisheh, M., Zaworotko, M.J., Walker, G.M.
Metal-Organic Material Polymer Coatings for Enhanced Gas Sorption Performance and Hydrolytic Stability under Humid Conditions
(2020) ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 12 (30), pp. 33759-33764


Singh, M., Kumar, A., Shirazian, S., Ranade, V., Walker, G.
Characterization of simultaneous evolution of size and composition distributions using generalized aggregation population balance equation
(2020) Pharmaceutics, 12 (12), art. no. 1152, pp. 1-17.


Kavanagh, O., Hogan, F., Murphy, C., Croker, D., Walker, G.
Formulating a stable mannitol infusion while maintaining hyperosmolarity
(2020) Pharmaceutics, 12 (2), art. no. 187, .