Saiful returned to the UK in 1990 to become a lecturer, then reader, at the University of Surrey. In January 2006 he was appointed professor of Materials Chemistry at the University of Bath.[5][6] His group applies computational methods combined with structural techniques to study fundamental atomistic properties such as ion conduction, defect chemistry and surface structures.[7][8] In January 2022, he joined the Department of Materials, University of Oxford as a professor of materials modelling.[9]
Saiful has been a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Materials Chemistry, and sits on the advisory board of the RSC journal Energy and Environmental Science.[10] He is Principal Investigator of the Faraday Institution's 'CATMAT' project on Next-generation Lithium-Ion Cathode Materials.[11]
Outreach and public engagement
Saiful presented the 2016 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, entitled "Supercharged: Fuelling the Future" on the theme of energy, a commemorative lecture series for the BBC which celebrated 80 years since the Christmas Lectures[12] were first broadcast on television in 1936.[13] The lectures were broadcast on BBC Four, and achieved over 3.5 million interactions through the BBC broadcasts and social media. Saiful was interviewed before these lectures for articles in The Guardian.[14][15][16] A demonstration in these lectures led to a Guinness World Record for the highest voltage (1,275 Volts) produced by a fruit battery using more than 1,000 lemons.[17] Saiful later broke that record in 2021 after using 2,923 lemons to produce 2,307.8 Volts.[18]
Saiful has served on the Diversity Committee of the Royal Society, and was selected for the Royal Society's 'Inspiring Scientists'[19] project that recorded the life stories of British scientists with minority ethnic heritage in partnership with National Life Stories at the British Library. His outreach activities include talks on energy materials to student audiences using 3D glasses organised by the TTP Education in Action at the UCL Institute of Education, London.[20] He was interviewed for The Life Scientific programme on BBC Radio 4 in October 2019.[21]
In 2019, he declined a New Year Honours Award of an Order of the British Empire, because he is "never been comfortable with the words ‘British Empire’ in this award and the links to empire, colonialism, and slavery".[2]