Mark Miodownik is Professor of Materials and Society in the UCL Mechanical Engineering Department. He received his PhD in turbine jet engine alloys from Oxford University in 1996. His main research area is self-organising and self-healing materials on which he has published more than ninety papers. He is the director of the Institute of Making which is a multidisciplinary research club for those interested in the made world: from makers of molecules to makers of buildings, synthetic skin to spacecraft, soup to clothes, furniture to cities. Professor Miodownik is a broadcaster and writer: he gave the 2010 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, and in 2012 presented a three-part BBC TV series on materials science called How It Works.