Elizabeth Spreadbury
Lecture, Library and Fund
Elizabeth Spreadbury
About Elizabeth
Elizabeth Spreadbury was a Ph.D. student in the High Energy Physics group at UCL, working on the OPAL experiment at CERN. She was sadly killed in 1990, when a car hit her bicycle in Geneva as she rode home. Elizabeth's parents donated her textbooks to the group and a donation which set up an endownment, marking the foundation of the Spreadbury Library and Fund. This fund now supports the annual Spreadbry Lecture and reception, as well as studentships in the group.
The Spreadbury Lecture
An annual lecture is held in the Department to celebrate Elizabeth's twin passions for particle physics and astronomy. This is a highlight of the Departmental Calendar, with speakers over the years including Jocelyn Bell Burnell, John Ellis and Martin Rees; also two Directors General of CERN: Christopher Llewellyn Smith and Rolf Heuer. A list of previous lectures as well as recordings/lecture notes can be found here.
Spreadbury Library
Elizabeth's parents donated her extensive textbook collection to the group, marking the start of the Spreadbury Library. In 1995, a theory professor - Leonardo Castillejo - also died suddenly and his wife donated some of his books to the library. In 2025, Basil Hiley sadly passed away, and his family donated his collection of textbooks to the library. Over the years, the collection has been expanded by other purchases. The library is housed in D17 in the Physics Building.
The current librarian is Uzay Islek. Please contact Uzay for all questions about the library.
1992-1993: Sabah Salih (from Iraq)
1993: Jason Ward and Paul Makkar (both from UK)
1994-1998: Ed McKigney (from USA) and Antonios Papanestis (from Greece)
1999-2000: Ben West and Russell Taylor (both from UK)
2003-2004: Steve Malton
2004-2006: Stathis Stefanidis (from Greece)
2006-2010: Matt Kauer (from USA)
2010-2014: Samer Kilani (from Jordan)
2014-2017: Xin Ran Liu
2017-2020: Ricky Nathvani
2025- : Uzay Islek
Spreadbury Fund
Generous donations from Elizabeth's parents, John and Jane, were used to set up an endownment to the Department was used to establish the Elizabeth Spreadbury Fund. The fund supports the annual lecuture, a HEP postgraduate student to act as librarian, and supports occiational HEP PhD studentships.
The terms of administration of the fund were approved by UCL council in 1990 and is overseen by the Spreadbury Commitee made up of members of the HEP Group and MSSL.