Ian Macmillan Ward (9 April 1928 – 5 November 2018)Professor Ian Macmillan Ward
/ref> was a British physicist specialising in polymer science. He was Cavendish Professor of Physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leeds where he was also chairman of the School of Physics and Astronomy and first Director of the

Polymer Interdisciplinary Research Centre The ''Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Polymer Science and Technology'' is a consortium of research groups, formed in 1989 from the Universities of Durham, Leeds and Bradford, all of whom are involved research in polymer science and technology ...

Early life and education

Ward was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne and

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...

Career

Ward joined the Fibres division of the

Imperial Chemical Industries Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) was a British chemical company. It was, for much of its history, the largest manufacturer in Britain. It was formed by the merger of four leading British chemical companies in 1926. Its headquarters were at M ...

as Technical Officer in 1954. Following a secondment to the Division of Applied Mathematics of

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

(1961–1962), he became the Head of the Basic Physics Section at the company. In 1965, he joined the University of Leeds as a Lecturer in Physics of Materials, becoming a Professor of Physics in 1970 and Cavendish Professor in 1989, before retiring in 1994. He chaired the Department of Physics at Leeds from 1975 until 1978 and from 1987 until 1989. He served as the president of the British Society of Rheology from 1984 until 1986. In 1989, he became the first Director of the

, holding the position until 1994. Ward was also a visiting Professor at the University of Bradford. He published 700 peer-reviewed journal articles, 6 textbooks and 20 major patents. He served as Editor of the journal ''Polymer'' published by Elsevier. He was managing director of several University of Leeds spin-off companies. These include Vantage Polymers for single polymer self-reinforced composites,

die Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life. Die may also refer to: Games * Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers Manufacturing * Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...

- drawn ropes and tubes, and Leeds Lithium Power for thermoreversible, ionically conducting polymer gel

electrolyte An electrolyte is a medium containing ions that is electrically conducting through the movement of those ions, but not conducting electrons. This includes most soluble salts, acids, and bases dissolved in a polar solvent, such as water. Upon dis ...

s used to manufacture lithium batteries.

Awards and honours

Ward received awards from the Institute of Physics: Charles Vernon Boys Medal (1993),

Glazebrook Medal The Richard Glazebrook Medal and Prize is awarded annually by the Institute of Physics to recognise leadership in the field of physics. It was established in 1966 and named in honour of Sir Richard T. Glazebrook, the first president of the Insti ...

(2004) – and the Institute of Materials: Griffith Medal (1982), Swinburne Medal (1988) and the Netlon Award (2004). In 1993, he received a honorary doctorate from the University of Bradford. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1983. One or more of the preceding sentences may incorporate text from the royalsociety.org website where "all text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License." , "Intellectual property rights" His certificate of election reads: The Ian Macmillan Ward Prize for the Best Student Publication, awarded every two years to PhD students by the Institute of Physics Polymer Physics Group, is named in his honour. In 2013, the Department of Materials of

ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , ac ...

awarded him the Staudinger–Durrer Prize ''in recognition of his pioneering contributions to the field of mechanical properties of solid polymers and polymer-based composites.''

Major works

* * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ward, Ian 1928 births 2018 deaths British physicists Fellows of the Institute of Physics Fellows of the Royal Society Academics of the University of Leeds Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford People educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne Imperial Chemical Industries people