Professor earns honour for outstanding contribution to physics

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Professor Julian Jones

One of the highest honours available in the UK's physics community has been awarded to an academic at Heriot-Watt University.

Professor Julian Jones has been named an Honorary Fellow by the Institute of Physics (IOP) joining a select group of esteemed members.

It is the highest accolade the Institute can award and Professor Jones was selected for his outstanding contributions to research in optical fibre sensors, optical instrumentation and laser-material interactions, and his ongoing service to the Institute of Physics and IOP Publishing.

On being named an Honorary Fellow, Professor Jones said: “The Institute of Physics makes an invaluable contribution to the physics community to which I have belonged throughout my professional life, and so the honour of being awarded this fellowship is something that will always be very important to me.” 

Since 2010, Professor Jones has been vice-principal of Heriot-Watt University. His research in applied optics has had many applications including the development of instrumentation for jet-engine design experiments; pressure sensors used in experiments for mitigation of terrorist explosions; fluorescence techniques for detection of contamination in surgical instruments; the first quantitative measurements of wing-shape in natural insect flight; and more.

Professor Jones is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Optical Society of America and the Institute of Physics.  

He was appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year’s Honours of 2002, ‘for services to science and engineering’.

The Institute of Physics is the professional body and learned society for physics in the UK and Ireland. It works with a range of partners to support and develop the teaching of physics in schools as well as encourage innovation, growth and productivity in business.

 

Craig McManamon

Communications officer

e: c.mcmanamon@hw.ac.uk