R. D Rawlings

Rees Rawlings obtained a BSc (Eng) in Metallurgy at Imperial College, London, and stayed on in the Department of Materials to study for a PhD. He joined the staff in 1966, was awarded his PhD in 1967, and was made Professor of Materials Science in 1993. His research field is the correlation of microstructure and properties, mainly mechanical properties, but in some cases functional properties such as electrical and magnetic. Early work was mainly on brittle metals and intermetallic compounds but an interest in ceramics, including glasses and glass-ceramics, also soon developed. This work has recently been extended to composites and functionally graded materials based on metals and ceramics. He has published about 200 research papers and is the co-author of two textbooks. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, was awarded a DSc in 1989 and the Pfeil Medal of the Institute of Materials in 1990. He was Head of the Department of Earth Resources Engineering (1997–1998), Dean of the Royal School of Mines (1995–1998), is Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Center for Composite Materials, Editor of the Journal of Materials Science and Journal of Materials Science Letters, and Pro Rector (Educational Quality) at Imperial College, London.