Exeter professor conferred as Honorary Fellow of Institute of Physics

Professor Sambles, from the University of Exeter’s Physics and Astronomy department, is one of three new Honorary Fellows announced by the IoP for their exceptional contribution to advancing and promoting the field of Physics.

Professor Sambles, who has been at the forefront of experimental physics at the University of Exeter since 1991 and is the senior academic in the large electromagnetic and acoustic materials research group, will have the honour officially conferred at a special ceremony, held by the IoP in November.

Speaking about the award, Professor Sambles said: “I am delighted to have been elected an Honorary Fellow, it is very pleasing to be recognised by my academic colleagues for my contribution to UK (and international) Physics. Further, when I look at the list of existing honorary fellows I feel truly honoured."

Professor Sambles’ research focuses on the electromagnetic and acoustic properties of metamaterials encompassing potential developments in ‘cloaking’ as well as radio frequency communications, while his earlier research included work on the fundamentals of melting, the colours of butterfly wings, spin waves in alkali metals, molecular rectifiers, liquid crystal optics and plasmonics.

Born and educated at school in Cornwall, Professor Sambles has worked at the University of Exeter for  more than forty years and currently lives, with his wife of more than  50 years, in Crediton in Devon.

After taking his undergraduate degree and doctorate at Imperial College London, he was a research fellow at Imperial for two years before being appointed as a lecturer in physics at Exeter in 1972. He became a senior lecturer there in 1985, a reader in 1988 and was made professor in 1991.

He holds more than 20 patents and his research, he has published over 530 scientific papers, has helped to underpin technological developments at BAE, Sharp, Qinetiq, Hewlett Packard and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.

Professor Sambles was also from 2008 to 2014 a Council  member of the government funding agency for scientific research in UK Universities, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and also served for six years on the Governments Defence Science Advisory Council. He has in addition provided advice on aspects of national security and served on many National committees and panels.

He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2002 and received the IOP’s Thomas Young Medal in 2003 and its Faraday Medal in 2012. He also received the George Gray Medal of the British Liquid Crystal Society in 1998. He was President of the IoP from 2015-17.