Academic biography

Dr Andy S. Anker is a postdoctoral researcher at DTU Energy, Technical University of Denmark. He currently holds visiting positions at the University of Oxford and Somerville College, Oxford, where he serves as a Fulford Junior Research Fellow. Dr Anker was awarded a 4 million DKK Novo Nordisk Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship to establish a self-driving laboratory (SDL) aimed at the controlled synthesis of inorganic nanomaterials, operating at the intersection of materials chemistry, machine learning (ML), and robotics for sustainable applications.

In recognition of his pioneering contributions, Dr Anker was selected for Forbes’ “30 Under 30 Europe” in Science & Healthcare (2024), received the Danish Scattering Society’s PhD Award (2024), and was honoured with the Inflection 2025 Award, identifying him among the top 30 PhDs globally addressing climate change challenges.

His research integrates advanced X-ray scattering techniques, including total scattering with pair distribution function analysis, and small-angle X-ray scattering, with state-of-the-art ML methods for structural characterisation and analysis. Dr Anker collaborates extensively with leading researchers in the fields of automation (Prof. Kasper Støy @ IT University of Copenhagen), nanoparticle synthesis (Assist. Prof. Jonathan Quinson @ Aarhus University), ML-driven atomistic modelling (Assoc. Prof. Volker Deringer @ University of Oxford), ML-analysis of scattering and spectroscopy data (Assoc. Prof. Keith Butler @ University College London), and SDLs for sustanable materials (Prof. Tejs Vegge @ the CAPeX Centre at DTU).

Dr Anker obtained his PhD in Materials Chemistry from the Nanostructure Group UPCH, University of Copenhagen, supervised by Assoc. Prof. Kirsten Marie Ørnsbjerg Jensen, focusing on nanoparticle structure analysis in solution using combined PDF and SAXS techniques and advanced computational modelling in Python. During his doctoral studies, he collaborated extensively with Assist. Prof. Raghavendra Selvan on developing ML tools to analyse chemical data and spent six months at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, working with Assoc. Prof. Keith Tobias Butler and the Scientific Machine Learning Group.