Richard John Brook, Director, The Leverhulme Trust#

Biography#

Professor Brook graduated from the University of Leeds in 1962 with the degree BSc (Honours First Class) in Ceramics. His doctoral studies were conducted under the direction of Professor W D Kingery at MIT resulting in the award of Sc.D degree in 1966 for a thesis on "Nickel-ferrite thin films".

He then went to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles as Assistant Professor of Materials Science where he joined Dr F A Kroger in studies of the defect chemistry of oxides. In 1970 he returned to the United Kingdom to take up a post as group leader for electrical ceramics at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell. In 1974 Professor Brook became Professor and Head of the Department of Ceramics at the University of Leeds.

In 1988, Professor Brook moved to Germany to become a scientific member of the Max-Planck-Society and Director at the Institute of Metals Research in Stuttgart. He is Honorary Professor at the University of Stuttgart.

In 1991, Professor Brook returned to the UK as Professor of Materials Science at the University of Oxford. He took leave of absence from the University of Oxford from April 1994 until September 2001 while he held the position of Chief Executive at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. He began his current role as Director of the Leverhulme Trust in October 2001.

Professor Brook became a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1998. He is a Distinguished Life Member of the American Ceramic Society and is a Past-President of the Institute of Ceramics and of the British Ceramic Society. He is Membre d'Honneur of the Société Française de Métallurgie et des Matériaux. He is a member of the Senate of the Max Planck Society and of the Council of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He became an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1988 and Knight Bachelor in 2002.