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Four UCL professors elected as Fellows of the Royal Society

28 May 2004

Four UCL professors, including two from its Chemistry Department, are among the new Fellows of the Royal Society, announced today.

The Royal Society confirmed that it was exceptional for two professors within the same chemistry department to be elected as Fellows at the same time.

Fellows are elected for their contributions to science, both in fundamental research resulting in greater understanding and also in leading and directing scientific and technological progress in industry and research establishments. A maximum of 44 new Fellows may be elected annually.

The UCL professors elected as Fellows this year are:

•  Charles Richard Arthur Catlow, Wolfson Professor of Natural Philosophy and Director, Davy Faraday Research Laboratory, Royal Institution of Great Britain and Head of Chemistry, University College London. Richard Catlow has pioneered the development and application of computer modelling in solid state and materials chemistry;

•  David Thomas Kemp, Professor of Auditory Biophysics, Institute of Otolaryngology, University College London. He is known for his discovery that the ear emits sound. He showed that otoacoustic emissions are a property of the normal cochlea. The finding decisively established that the inner ear actively amplifies sound and has led to a synthesis of cellular and systems approaches to hearing;

•  William Branks Motherwell, Alexander Williamson Professor of Chemistry, University College London. Distinguished for his discovery, invention and development of a range of new and unusual synthetic methods used in contemporary organic chemistry;

•  David Preiss, Astor Professor of Mathematics, UCL. A mathematical analyst of great distinction, he is well known for deep results in geometric measure theory and has made seminal contributions to nonlinear geometric functional analysis.

Professor Malcolm Grant, Provost of UCL, welcomed the election of the UCL professors as Royal Society Fellows: "Scientific excellence is the hall-mark of the UK 's world-class universities, and we are delighted by the awards to four leading members of UCL's scientific community. This is a wonderful individual achievement by Professors Catlow, Kemp, Motherwell and Preiss, and I am delighted that UCL continues to provide the right climate to nurture such outstanding individual talents."