Professor Cates has been Chair of Natural Philosophy in the School of Physics & Astronomy since 1995.
His honorary professorship will allow ongoing collaboration with the School when he leaves to take up the position of 19th Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge in July.
Research
Professor Cates’ research is on the statistical mechanics of soft condensed matter. This includes colloids, polymers, emulsions, foams, surfactant solutions, powders, liquid crystals, and similar materials.
He is renowned for creating statistical, mechanical models of these materials, particularly in relation to their flow behaviour and any peculiarities.
Unusual flow behaviour stems from the mesoscopic structure of the material and is often related to the overall geometry of the constituents, such as flexible chain molecules and colloidal hard spheres, rather than their chemical microstructure.
Professor Cates’ simplified models capture the essential physics without including all chemical detail and can be addressed analytically or by simulation.
Awards
Professor Cates became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2004 and of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2007. He received a Royal Society Research Professorship, one of the UK’s most prestigious academic appointments, in 2007 that was renewed in 2012.
He received the Gold Medal of the British Society of Rheology in 2009 and the Weissenberg Award of the European Society of Rheology in 2013.
He has been an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge since 2013.