Robert Joseph Young (born 29 May 1948) is a British materials scientist specialising in

polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...

s and composites. He is a Professor of Polymer Science and Technology at the

National Graphene Institute The National Graphene Institute is a research institute and building at the University of Manchester that is focused on the research of graphene. Construction of the building to house the institute started in 2013 and finished in 2015. Institut ...

of the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univ ...

Education

Young was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, where he received his

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Th ...

and

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

degrees.Robert Joseph Young

Research and career

Young has published over 330 research papers which have been cited over 37,000 times, leading to a h-index of 91. He is known for research on the relationships between the structure and mechanical properties of polymers and composites. A particular focus of his work has been the study of how materials such as

carbon fibre Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...

s and

spider silk Spider silk is a protein fibre spun by spiders. Spiders use their silk to make webs or other structures, which function as sticky nets to catch other animals, or as nests or cocoons to protect their offspring, or to wrap up prey. They can ...

deform Deformation can refer to: * Deformation (engineering), changes in an object's shape or form due to the application of a force or forces. ** Deformation (physics), such changes considered and analyzed as displacements of continuum bodies. * De ...

at the molecular level. He has also studied carbon-fibre composites, carbon nanotubes and the deformation of

graphene Graphene () is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure.

— a one-atom thick sheet of

carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon mak ...

. Among his work on polymer-graphene composites, one important result elucidated for the first time the relationship between composite reinforcement and matrix modulus. In his research, Young made a novel use of Raman spectroscopy. In this technique,

laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fi ...

light is shone onto a material and the wavelength and intensity of the resulting scattered light is measured and analysed. The changes in the light relate to changes in

bond length In molecular geometry, bond length or bond distance is defined as the average distance between nuclei of two bonded atoms in a molecule. It is a transferable property of a bond between atoms of fixed types, relatively independent of the rest of ...

between the atoms of the molecules in the material when the material is deformed. He has also co-authored the widely used textbook: ''Introduction to Polymers''.

Awards and honours

Young received the 2011 Leslie Holliday Prize and the 2012 Swinburne Medal from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, and delivered the Swinburne Lecture in 2013. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2013. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: His certificate of election reads:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Robert 1948 births Living people British materials scientists Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellows of the Institute of Physics Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Academics of the University of Manchester Fellows of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining