Dr. James Dean

Dr James Dean is the CEO and co-founder of Plastometrex, a Cambridge-based technology company that specialises in obtaining stress-strain curves non-destructively, and in providing fast and insightful mechanical testing solutions.

James holds an undergraduate degree (BEng) from Imperial College, London, in Materials Science and Engineering, a Master’s Degree (MSc) from Cranfield University in Thermal Power (Gas Turbine Engineering) and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He has published over 30 papers concerning the deformation and mechanics of materials, has delivered several invited talks and plenary lectures at international conferences, and has an international reputation in the field of indentation and finite element analysis.

In 2012, James founded his own consultancy firm, which was sold to Element Materials Technology in January 2021. In February 2018, he joined the Centre for Scientific Computing at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge (Department of Physics), where he accepted a position as Coordinator of the EPSRC-funded Centre for Doctoral Training in Computational Methods for Materials Science. In 2019, James left the University of Cambridge after 15 years to concentrate on activities associated with Plastometrex, which he co-founded in late 2018.