Richard A. Jones (physicist)

For other people named Richard Jones, see Richard Jones (disambiguation).

Richard Jones FInstP FLSW FRS
Born	Richard Anthony Lewis Jones 1961 (age 62–63)[4][5]
Education	Denstone College[4]
Alma mater	University of Cambridge (BA, PhD)
Known for	Soft Condensed Matter[2]
Scientific career
Fields	Physics[1] Soft matter[2] Science policy[3]
Institutions	University of Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory Cornell University University of Sheffield University of Manchester
Thesis	Mutual diffusion in miscible polymer blends (1987)
Website	softmachines.org

Richard Anthony Lewis Jones (born 1961)^[4][5] FInstP FLSW FRS^[6] is professor of Materials Physics and Innovation Policy at the University of Manchester having been professor of physics at the University of Sheffield until 2020.^[7][1][8][9]

Education

Jones was educated at Denstone College^[4] and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he studied the Natural Sciences Tripos and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Physics 1983.^[4] He continued his study at the University of Cambridge where his PhD investigated diffusion in polymer blends.^[10]

Career and research

After postdoctoral research at Cornell University, he was appointed a lecturer at the University of Cambridge based at the Cavendish Laboratory^[4] and in 1998 was appointed a professor at the University of Sheffield.^[11]

Jones' research^[1][8] investigates the physics of Polymers and Biopolymers at surfaces and interfaces, with implications for polymer blends.^[6][2] He pioneered the use of ion beam methods to study the segregation of one component to the surface of a blend.^[6] This in turn led to experiments on capillary wave broadening of interfaces, using neutron reflectivity.^[6] His experiments on the thickness-dependence of Glass transitions^[12] in thin films has stimulated a new research field.^[6][13] He has extended his studies to the denaturation of proteins at interfaces, demonstrating how the surface hydrophilicity has a strong effect, with implications for problems ranging from fouling to disease.^[6][14]

In 2018 he co-authored The Biomedical Bubble^[3] with James Wilsdon [Wikidata], which argued that United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) needs a greater diversity of priorities, politics, places and people.^{[15][16][17][18][19]}

In 2020, Jones moved to Manchester.^[20]

Awards and honours

Jones was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2006 for "substantial contributions to the improvement of natural knowledge".^[6]

In 2008 he won the Institute of Physics David Tabor Medal and Prize.^[21]

In 2021, Jones was elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.^[22]

References

1. Richard A. Jones publications indexed by Google Scholar
2. Jones, Richard A. L. (2002). Soft Condensed Matter. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198505891.
3. Jones, Richard A. J.; Wilsdon, James (2018). "The Biomedical Bubble". nesta.org.uk. Nesta.
4. Anon (2017). "Jones, Prof. Richard Anthony Lewis". Who's Who (online ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U151439. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
5. Richard Jones at Library of Congress
6. Anon (2012). "Professor Richard Jones FRS". royalsociety.org. London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 29 June 2017. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:

   "All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License." --Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies at the Wayback Machine (archived 2016-11-11)

7. Sheffield, University of. "Richard Jones – Contacts – Physics and Astronomy – The University of Sheffield". University of Sheffield.
8. Richard A. Jones publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
9. "Soft Machines – Some personal views on nanotechnology, science and science policy from Richard Jones". softmachines.org.
10. Jones, Richard Anthony Lewis (1987). Mutual diffusion in miscible polymer blends. jisc.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC 499164519. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.233254.
11. "About Richard Jones – Soft Machines". softmachines.org. 29 October 2011.
12. Keddie, J. L; Jones, R. A. L; Cory, R. A (1994). "Size-Dependent Depression of the Glass Transition Temperature in Polymer Films". Europhysics Letters (EPL). 27 (1): 59–64. Bibcode:1994EL.....27...59K. doi:10.1209/0295-5075/27/1/011. ISSN 0295-5075. S2CID 250841160.
13. Jones, Richard A. L.; Norton, Laura J.; Kramer, Edward J.; Bates, Frank S.; Wiltzius, Pierre (1991). "Surface-directed spinodal decomposition". Physical Review Letters. 66 (10): 1326–1329. Bibcode:1991PhRvL..66.1326J. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.66.1326. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 10043177.
14. Howse, Jonathan R.; Jones, Richard A. L.; Ryan, Anthony J.; Gough, Tim; Vafabakhsh, Reza; Golestanian, Ramin (2007). "Self-Motile Colloidal Particles: From Directed Propulsion to Random Walk". Physical Review Letters. 99 (4): 048102. arXiv:0706.4406. Bibcode:2007PhRvL..99d8102H. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.048102. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 17678409. S2CID 16932092.
15. Anon (2018). "Editorial: UK life science research: time to burst the biomedical bubble". The Lancet. 392 (10143): 187. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31609-X. PMID 30043738.
16. Ahuja, Anjana (2018). "Britain must stop inflating the biomedical bubble". Financial Times. (subscription required)
17. Jones, Richard A. J.; Wilsdon, James (2018). "It's time to burst the biomedical bubble in UK research". The Guardian.
18. Jones, Richard A. J.; Wilsdon, James (2018). "Rethinking the life sciences strategy". wonkhe.com.
19. Watt, Fiona (2018). "Popping the bubble". insight.mrc.ac.uk. Medical Research Council. Archived from the original on 10 September 2018.
20. "New Chair in Materials Physics and Innovation Policy". University of Manchester. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
21. "2008 Tabor Medal and Prize". Institute of Physics. Retrieved 23 December 2019.
22. Wales, The Learned Society of. "Richard A.L. Jones". The Learned Society of Wales. Retrieved 30 August 2023.

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