Alex Lips

Scientific Advisor

Alex is an Honorary Professor within the School of Physics & Astronomy at Edinburgh University as well as a consultant for several corporations. Previously he was a Visiting Research Collaborator at Princeton University, in Biochemical and Chemical Engineering, and between 1997 and 2008, served as Unilever’s leading skin materials scientist and Director of Research in Unilever’s US R&D location. Alex has exceptionally wide FMCG technology experience across personal care, home care and foods and an international academic reputation in surface and colloid science.

Alex’s technology achievements include numerous scientific advances in design of structured materials exploited by Unilever in sensory structuring technologies for skin care products, dislocative surfactant technologies for ultra mild skin cleansing products, fabric conditioning liquids, low fat technologies for foods, novel structuring technologies for ice containing food products, and functional food emulsions. He is co-inventor of 45 US patent applications and has an international academic reputation with scientific publications in prestigious journals, (h-factor 28), and textbooks in surface and colloid science, polymer biophysics and rheology. His broad research interests span colloidal physics, nano science, biopolymers, emulsion science, surfactant phase behaviour, rheology, chemical hydrodynamics, foams, wetting, skin biophysics, crystal growth, physical chemistry, self-assembly, dermal delivery, lipid digestion and glasses and supercooled liquids.