Anthony John Ryan (born 1962)[3] OBE FRSC is an English polymer chemist and sustainability leader at the University of Sheffield.

[5] He delivered the 2002 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures[6] and has appeared on programmes including the BBC Radio 4 comedy and popular science series The Infinite Monkey Cage.

[5] Upon becoming Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Sheffield, Ryan spearheaded Project Sunshine, which brought together a number of areas of scientific research under the umbrella of sustainability.

[20] The Grantham Centre, with Ryan as Director, builds on the work of Project Sunshine through an interdisciplinary PhD training programme that gives students (known as 'Grantham Scholars') the skills to become sustainability advocates, as well as experts in their particular fields of research.

The first Catalytic Clothing exhibition, Herself, featured a couture textile sculpture and was first show in Sheffield in October 2010, before appearing as part of Newcastle ScienceFest in 2011.

The giant poster hung from the side of the Alfred Denny Building at the university and absorbed the toxic emissions from around 20 cars each day.

The poster was unveiled at the university's spoken word festival Lyric and featured a poem by Armitage written especially for the project, 'In Praise Of Air'.

[26] Ryan has worked extensively as a science communicator and commentator, and in 2002, he presented the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures.

He has appeared on BBC Radio 4 programmes including Start the Week, Material World,[29] In Our Time[30] and The Infinite Monkey Cage, and was the subject of a 2012 episode of The Life Scientific.

The ride raised £44,000 for hearing research at the university and was followed in 2015 by The Big Walk, in which Ryan co-captained a 286-mile trek along the Pennine Way.