Dean Williams honored for contributions to microscopy, materials science

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The council of the Royal Microscopical Society has unanimously voted to award Dean David B. Williams with an Honorary Fellowship. The award will be presented this August during the 16th European Microscopy Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Dean David B. Williams

Founded in 1839, the Royal Microscopical Society is dedicated to the promotion and development of microscopy and imaging. Honorary fellowships are bestowed by the society for preeminence in microscopy and related branches of science. Since 1840, only 272 have been awarded to scholars from a variety of scientific disciplines throughout the world. This list of luminaries includes eight Nobel Prize winners—Joachim Frank, Stefan Hell and Sir Howard Florey among them—as well as 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Millie Dresselhaus.

“Your achievements in microscopy and materials science are well-known worldwide, and your activities have a tremendous impact,” Society President Grace Burke wrote in a letter to Williams. On its website, RMS lauds Williams as “synonymous with Analytical Transmission Electron Microscopy (ATEM), having pioneered its development and applications to a broad range of materials. Over the past 45 years his work has led to a new understanding of materials and microstructural evolution, including segregation, precipitation phenomena, phase diagrams and phase transformations in metals and alloys.”

A native of Leeds, England, Williams holds B.A., M.A., Ph.D. and Sc.D. degrees from the University of Cambridge. He is a strong advocate for excellence in education and research, and is co-author and editor of 13 textbooks and conference proceedings and (co-) author of over 450 publications on the application of electron microscopy to studies of metals and alloys.

He is co-author with Professor C. Barry Carter—also an elected Honorary Fellow this year—of the leading textbook Transmission Electron Microscopy, which has sold over 20,000 copies and over 1 million chapter downloads. Williams has given more than 300 invited talks in 30 countries. A current visiting professor at the University of Manchester School of Materials, he is a Fellow of nine national and international professional societies in the areas of electron microscopy, materials science, aviation and aerospace engineering.

In 2018, Williams was elected Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) and honored as a member of the Microanalysis Society's inaugural class of fellows.

Original story published by the College of Engineering, January 31, 2020

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