Trailblazer’s career is honoured by peers at a conference

Professor Dame Julia Higgins’ life long research is celebrated – News

Tuesday 16 September 2008
By Colin Smith

The trailblazing career of one of Imperial’s leading scientists is celebrated at a conference held at the College this week (14-15 September 2008).

Professor Dame Julia Higgins, leading polymer scientist and former principal of the Faculty of Engineering, was honoured by friends, colleagues and members of the international science community for her pioneering research.

Her career has been focussed on polymers, substances consisting of extremely large slow moving molecules, which are used in a variety of materials including shopping bags, disposable plates, water bottles and clothes.

Polymers are used in a variety of products including plastic bottles

In particular, Dame Julia is credited with being one of the first in her field to study polymers by harnessing neutron scattering, a technology using neutron particles rather like x-rays to build up detailed images of the structural arrangement of polymers at scales 10,000 times thinner than a human hair.

Her research in the 1960s and 1970s led to an understanding of the structure and behaviour of molecules in polymers which led to the development of new strong and flexible polymers now used in products as diverse as scratch resistant shatter proof mobile phone screens to durable light weight plastics in medical prosthetics for hip replacements. Dame Julia says:

“At the start of my career I was extremely lucky to get into this new technique which looked at polymers. Back then they were poorly understood materials. Coming into this field when the science was new gave me a huge advantage in my profession, which I was able to build on and develop in my career.”

Event organiser, Dr Joao Cabral, from Imperial’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology, says her research has had a major impact on polymer science worldwide. He adds:

"Dame Julia was one of the first to realise the potential of neutron scattering in explaining the molecular structure, function and properties of polymers. Her pioneering experiments are today textbook classics, repeated frequently by research groups around the world. It is a privilege to celebrate one of the leaders in our field."

At the conference her pioneering work was praised by speakers from the USA, Japan, Spain, France and the UK. They spoke about the latest advances in polymers including the development of plastics that can, for instance, collect sunlight for use in solar cells, deliver drugs inside the body, or respond to electronic signals for use as artificial muscles.

During the evening, a dinner was held in her honour at the Polish Club in Kensington where colleagues and friends paid warm tribute to her numerous contributions in the field both here and around the world. Dame Julia adds:

“I was delighted when I heard this event was being organised in my honour. I am enormously grateful to the organisers and deeply touched that so many of my colleagues and friends were here to celebrate the fantastic advances we’ve all made in polymer science over the last 40 years.”

Both a physicist and an engineer, Dame Julia has worked in many leading institutions including the Institut Charles Sadron, Strasbourg, Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, France, and the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell, UK, where she interacted with some of the greatest minds in her field including the Nobel Laureates Paul Flory and Pierre Gilles de Gennes.

She arrived at Imperial in 1976 and became a lecturer in chemical engineering and then a reader in polymer science. By this time she had become one of the UK’s leading authorities in her field.

Dame Julia went on to become Dean of City and Guilds College (1993-1997). She was Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology from 2000 to 2001, before becoming the Principal of the Faculty of Engineering (2006-2007). She was also the first woman to be a Fellow of both the Royal Society (1995) and the Royal Academy of Engineering (1999).

Dame Julia who has contributed to the advancement of women in roles which include chair of the government’s Athena project which seeks to promote the role of women in science, engineering and technology, is now a senior research investigator. However, she still finds time to carry on her research, pushing forward our understanding of complex polymer mixtures - the new scientific frontier in her field.

The ‘Advances in Polymer Science and Neutron Scattering’ conference was organised by Imperial in conjunction with the Institute of Physics and the science research centres Institut Laue-Langevin and ISIS UK.