James A. COVINGTON
PhD in Engineering – Warwick University
Professor in Electronic Engineering within the School of Engineering at Warwick University
James Covington (JC) is a Professor in Electronic Engineering within the School of Engineering at Warwick University. He has spent his academic career developing chemical and biological sensors for detecting a variety of environmental pollutants and biological agents, applying a wide range of electronic and MEMS techniques in the development of these novel sensors.
He setup the Biomedical Sensors Laboratory in 2010, at Warwick University to apply gas analysis techniques to the medical arena. This dedicated facility is focussed in the analysis of potential gas phase biomarkers that emanate from human waste (breath, urine, stool, sweat and skin). The group has looked at a number of different disease groups, including irritable bowel disease, skin/colorectal/bladder/pancreatic cancer, Coeliac’s disease, bile acid malabsorption, diabetes and tuberculosis – and many more. He has received funding from the EU, MRC, NIHR, industry and many charities (including the Rosetree foundation, BROAD foundation, BDRF, Coeliac UK, Lily-May charity and BRET) and has a number of patents in this area.
In addition, he has been working on developing low-cost, high-volume chemical sensors for the industrial sector. He has now produced the most cost & power efficient chemical sensors commercially available today. Such techniques are presently being applied to the environmental and agricultural sectors. He is also the vice-president of the International Society of Chemical Sensors (France) and is a member of both the IET (UK) and IEEE (US). He sits on the board of the Science & Technology for Health GRP, is the Engineering representative for the Warwick Centre of Analytical Sciences and is part of the MAS-DOC DTC. He has also been involved in numerous public events (including at the London Science Museum), TV programmes (Discovery Channel and BBC) and in the media for his work on smell.
