Former Staff News
Professor Michael B Green FRS will take over from Stephen Hawking as the new Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Michael Green was a member of staff in the Department of Physics for 14 years from 1978 to 1992 and he is currently Visiting Professor in the Department of Physics. Michael’s pioneering work in String Theory was carried out at Queen Mary.
Former Lucasian Professors included Sir Isaac Newton a Nobel Prize winner in Physics (1933) and Paul Dirac who both held the chair for more than 30 years; Charles Babbage and Sir James Lighthill, Former Provost of UCL. Professor Green is the 18th Lucasian Professor. For more information about the Lucasian Professorships, click here. [opens in a new window]
Obituary
Professor Bernard J. Aylett, FRSC (1927-2010)
It is with sadness that the College notes the passing of a much respected colleague Bernard Aylett who died on Sunday 18 April 2010.
Bernard Aylett studied chemistry at Cambridge from 1948-54, being awarded both MA and PhD degrees. His doctoral research concerned the chemistry of silicon compounds, specifically silyl derivatives of group 15 elements, and was supervised by Professor H.J. Emeléus. Bernard spent the next seven years as a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen before moving to Westfield College in 1961 as a Lecturer in Chemistry. He arrived shortly after the creation of the Science Faculty in 1960.
He rose steadily through the ranks at Westfield to Professor in 1973, and became Head of the Department of Chemistry and was Dean of the Westfield Faculty of Science from 1975 to 1977. He was also Science Vice-Principal for a brief time during 1981-82.
In 1982, before the main transfer of Westfield science to Queen Mary College, he was among the first members of the Westfield Science Faculty to contribute to teaching on the Mile End campus. He transferred fully in 1983 and from 1984 – 1990 held the Chair of Inorganic Chemistry at Queen Mary College. (The two Colleges merged in 1989 to become Queen Mary and Westfield College.)
He was Dean of the Faculty of Science from 1985-87 and of the expanded Faculty of Physical and Biological Sciences for the 1987-88 academic year.
He published several books and numerous papers, mainly dealing with silicon-nitrogen and silicon-metal compounds. He developed the use of such compounds as CVD (chemical vapour deposition) precursors for electronic materials, especially in relation to porous silicon devices.
Among many other activities he was a founding Trustee of the Westfield Trust in 1988 and served on the board through the twenty-one years of its existence as an independent charity.
Incorporated by Royal Charter as Queen Mary & Westfield College, University of London