Richard John Blaikie (born 25 August 1965) is a physicist who works in the field of nano-scale optics. He is currently Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) at the University of Otago.

Early life

Blaikie was born in 1965 and attended Kaikorai Valley College in Dunedin. He studied at the University of Otago (1984–1987) and graduated with a BSc (Hons) in physics. He won a Rutherford Memorial Scholarship to attend the University of Cambridge (1988–1992), where he received a PhD in physics in 1992.

Academic career

After a year at the Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory, he took a position as a lecturer at the

University of Canterbury The University of Canterbury ( mi, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha; postnominal abbreviation ''Cantuar.'' or ''Cant.'' for ''Cantuariensis'', the Latin name for Canterbury) is a public research university based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was ...

. He was at Canterbury from February 1994 to November 2011, and he was made a professor during that time. In 2001, he was a Fulbright Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When the

MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (often simply called the MacDiarmid Institute) is a New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) specialising in materials science and nanotechnology. It is hosted by Victoria ...

was formed in 2002, he was appointed Deputy Director under Professor

Paul Callaghan Sir Paul Terence Callaghan ( ; 19 August 1947 – 24 March 2012) was a New Zealand physicist who, as the founding director of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology at Victoria University of Wellington, held t ...

. When Callaghan retired in 2008, Blaikie was appointed Director. During his tenure, the institute received a bequest of NZ$1 million. Blaikie stepped down from the MacDiarmid Institute half way through 2011 when he received his appointment as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) at the University of Otago. He took up the role in December 2011, succeeding

Harlene Hayne Vada Harlene Hayne (born ) is an American-born academic administrator who was the vice-chancellor and a professor of psychology at the University of Otago in New Zealand, before moving to Western Australia to take up the position of vice-chance ...

. He also holds a chair in physics. Blaikie received the

T. K. Sidey Medal Sir Thomas Kay Sidey (27 May 1863 – 20 May 1933) was a New Zealand politician from the Otago region, remembered for his successful advocacy of daylight saving time. Early life Sidey was born on 27 May 1863, to John and Johan Murray Sidey, in ...

in 2001, set up by the Royal Society of New Zealand as an award for outstanding scientific research. In 2011, Blaikie was elected fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. In 2013, Blaikie received the Hector Memorial Medal from the Royal Society "for his fundamental and wide-ranging contributions to the field of nano-optics, showing that light can be manipulated at scales much smaller than its wavelength and providing a world-first demonstration of a controversial superlens system using subwavelength techniques." The national ceremony for a range of Royal Society awards were held in the Dunedin Town Hall on 27 November 2013. In 2015, Blaikie was awarded the Thomson Medal for science leadership.

References

External links

Blaikie at the University of Otago
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blaikie, Richard 1965 births Living people People educated at Kaikorai Valley College University of Otago alumni University of Otago faculty Alumni of the University of Cambridge University of Canterbury faculty Fellows of the Royal Society of New Zealand New Zealand physicists New Zealand nanotechnologists 20th-century New Zealand scientists 21st-century New Zealand scientists