Ben Britton

Thomas Benjamin Britton CEng FIMMM (born 18 April 1985) is a materials scientist and engineer based at Imperial College London. He is a specialist in micromechanics, electron microscopy and crystal plasticity. In 2014 he was awarded the Silver Medal of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3), a society of which he then became a Fellow in 2016.[3][1]

Ben Britton

CEng FIMMM
Ben Britton in 2019 at Imperial College London
Born
Thomas Benjamin Britton

(1985-04-18) 18 April 1985
Other namesBMatB[1][2]
EducationMagdalen College School, Oxford
Alma materUniversity of Oxford (BA, DPhil)
Scientific career
FieldsMaterials science
Micromechanics
Deformation
Strain
EBSD[3]
InstitutionsImperial College London
ThesisA high resolution electron backscatter diffraction study of titanium and its alloys (2009)
Doctoral advisorAngus Wilkinson[4]
Websiteimperial.ac.uk/people/b.britton
"Benjamin Britton" redirects here. For the British composer, see Benjamin Britten.

Early life and education

Britton grew up in Oxford and attended Magdalen College School, Oxford. He graduated with a Master of Engineering (MEng) in materials science from the University of Oxford in 2007 where he was a student of St Catherine's College, Oxford. In 2010, he completed a Doctor of Philosophy degree in materials science, specifically for an electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) study of titanium and its alloys supervised by Angus Wilkinson.[4]

Research and career

After completing his PhD, Britton spent two years in Oxford as a postdoctoral research associate studying materials for fission and fusion power.[5] He received a fellowship in nuclear research in the faculty of engineering at Imperial College London in 2012.[6] In 2015, he was appointed a lecturer in the centre for nuclear engineering at Imperial supported by a Royal Academy of Engineering fellowship establishing the "better understanding of materials to make safer reactors".[7][8] As of 2017, Britton is a senior lecturer in materials science and the centre for nuclear engineering. He is the course director of Imperial's Master of Science (MSc) program in advanced nuclear engineering and deputy director of the centre for nuclear engineering.[9]

His first PhD student, Vivian Tong, worked on zirconium alloys, and solved a longstanding issue in the zirconium manufacturing sector.[10] Britton develops high resolution microscopy techniques, including forescatter electron imaging for topographic and phase contrast.[11]

Public engagement

Britton has led outreach and engagement activity aimed at changing public perception about nuclear energy,[12] and regularly blogs about early career academic life.[2] He has appeared on the podcast Scientists Not the Science.[13] As of 2017 he serves on the executive committee of Science is Vital, a grassroots campaign formed in 2010 to combat threats to the UK's research & development (R&D) budget.[14] He is a trustee of the charity Pride in STEM, through which he was nominated for the Gay Times honours in 2017.[15][16][17] He spoke at the Institute of Physics (IOP) pride of physics celebration in August 2018.[18] In 2018 he was interviewed for Nature's podcast Working Scientist, where he spoke about the advantages of using online platforms that allowed academics to collaborate and exchange ideas more easily.[19]

In his role as deputy director of Imperial's centre for nuclear engineering, Britton was a co-signatory of an open letter to Emmanuel Macron, urging the then-recently elected President of France to keep the nation's nuclear power plants open in order to keep carbon emissions low.[20] He has also contributed written evidence to the House of Lords about nuclear technology.[21]

Awards and honours

In 2014 Britton was awarded the IOM3 Silver Medal (Outstanding contribution to materials science, engineering and technology by individual under 30).[22] In 2016 he won one of five awards for the engineers trust young engineer of the year, being described by the Royal Academy of Engineering as one of the UK's "future engineering leaders".[23] In 2014 he was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM).[24]

Selected publications
  • A. J. Wilkinson, T. B. Britton. 2012. Strains, planes, and EBSD in materials science. MaterialsToday 15 (9), 366-376.[25]
  • T. B. Britton, H. Liang, F. P. E. Dunne, A. J. Wilkinson. 2009. The effect of crystal orientation on the indentation response of commercially pure titanium: experiments and simulations. Proc. R. Soc. A, 466:695–719.[26]
  • A. T. Murdock, A. K., T. B. Britton, L. Houben, T. Batten, T. Zhang, A. J. Wilkinson, R. E. Dunin-Borkowski, C. E. Lekka, N. Grobert. 2013. Controlling the orientation, edge geometry, and thickness of chemical vapor deposition graphene. ACS Nano, 7(2):1351–1359.[27]
  • T. B. Britton, A. J. Wilkinson. 2012. High resolution electron backscatter diffraction measurements of elastic strain variations in the presence of larger lattice rotations. Ultramicroscopy, 114:82-95.[28]
  • T. B. Britton, A. J. Wilkinson. 2011. Measurement of residual elastic strain and lattice rotations with high resolution electron backscatter diffraction. Ultramicroscopy, 111(8):1395-1404.[29]
  • T. B. Britton, A. J. Wilkinson. 2012. Stress fields and geometrically necessary dislocation density distributions near the head of a blocked slip band. Acta Materialia, 60(16):5773-5782.[30]
  • T. B. Britton, F. P. E. Dunne, A. J. Wilkinson. 2015. On the mechanistic basis of deformation at the microscale in hexagonal close-packed metals. Proc. R. Soc. A.471:20140881.[31]

References
  1. Ben Britton on Twitter @BMatB
  2. "Dr Ben Britton – medium/@BMatB". medium.com. Medium. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  3. Ben Britton publications indexed by Google Scholar
  4. Britton, Thomas Ben (2009). A high resolution electron backscatter diffraction study of titanium and its alloys. jisc.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). OCLC 863582584. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.547449.
  5. "Ben Britton | Materials for Fusion & Fission Power". mffp.materials.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 11 January 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  6. "Royal Academy of Engineering honours young engineers". iom3.org. IOM3. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  7. "RAEng Research Fellowship - Current and recent awards". raeng.org.uk. Royal Academy of Engineering. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  8. Ford, Jason (4 September 2014). "Materials study aims at improving nuclear reactor performance". theengineer.co.uk. The Engineer. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  9. "CNE staff". imperial.ac.uk. Imperial College London. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  10. "The June Wilson Award Finalist". iom3.org. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
  11. Britton, T. Ben; Goran, Daniel; Tong, Vivian S. (2018). "Space rocks and optimising scanning electron channelling contrast". Materials Characterization. 142: 422–431. arXiv:1804.08754. doi:10.1016/j.matchar.2018.06.001. ISSN 1044-5803. S2CID 119457726.
  12. "Imperial experts share their thoughts on Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant | Imperial News | Imperial College London". Imperial News. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
  13. Higgins, Stuart (2018). "Season 4, Episode 59: Live at the Imperial Festival – Ben Britton (Bonus Episode)". scinotsci.com. Scientists not the Science. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  14. "About | Science is Vital". scienceisvital.org.uk. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  15. "Our Organisation". prideinstem.org. Pride in STEM. 27 November 2018. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  16. Britton, Ben (2019). "No sexuality please, we're scientists". youtube.com. YouTube.
  17. Pink, Chris (12 July 2018). "A walk on the Pride side". Chemistry World. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
  18. Anon (2018). "LGBT+ physicists celebrated at IOP Pride of Physics event". iop.org. Institute of Physics. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  19. Gould, Julie (1 May 2019). "Working Scientist podcast: Slack, and other technologies that are transforming lab life". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-01375-4 (inactive 10 January 2021).CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2021 (link)
  20. "Environmentalists appeal to Macron for nuclear". World Nuclear News. 4 July 2017. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
  21. "Nuclear research and technology: Breaking the cycle of indecision" (PDF). Parliament of the United Kingdom. 2017. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  22. IOM3. "Silver Medal". www.iom3.org. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
  23. "Royal Academy honours engineers' early career achievements - The Engineer The Engineer". theengineer.co.uk. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  24. Anon (2016). "End of year review". iom3.org. IOM3. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
  25. Wilkinson, Angus J.; Britton, T. Ben. (1 September 2012). "Strains, planes, and EBSD in materials science". Materials Today. 15 (9): 366–376. doi:10.1016/S1369-7021(12)70163-3. ISSN 1369-7021.
  26. Britton, T. B.; Liang, H.; Dunne, F. P. E.; Wilkinson, A. J. (8 March 2010). "The effect of crystal orientation on the indentation response of commercially pure titanium: experiments and simulations". Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 466 (2115): 695–719. Bibcode:2010RSPSA.466..695B. doi:10.1098/rspa.2009.0455. ISSN 1364-5021. S2CID 2030079. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
  27. Murdock, Adrian T.; Koos, Antal; Britton, T. Ben; Houben, Lothar; Batten, Tim; Zhang, Tong; Wilkinson, Angus J.; Dunin-Borkowski, Rafal E.; Lekka, Christina E. (26 February 2013). "Controlling the Orientation, Edge Geometry, and Thickness of Chemical Vapor Deposition Graphene". ACS Nano. 7 (2): 1351–1359. doi:10.1021/nn3049297. ISSN 1936-0851. PMID 23346949. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
  28. Britton, T. B.; Wilkinson, A. J. (1 March 2012). "High resolution electron backscatter diffraction measurements of elastic strain variations in the presence of larger lattice rotations". Ultramicroscopy. 114: 82–95. doi:10.1016/j.ultramic.2012.01.004. ISSN 0304-3991. PMID 22366635.
  29. Britton, T. B.; Wilkinson, A. J. (1 July 2011). "Measurement of residual elastic strain and lattice rotations with high resolution electron backscatter diffraction". Ultramicroscopy. 111 (8): 1395–1404. doi:10.1016/j.ultramic.2011.05.007. ISSN 0304-3991. PMID 21864783.
  30. Benjamin Britton, T.; Wilkinson, Angus J. (1 September 2012). "Stress fields and geometrically necessary dislocation density distributions near the head of a blocked slip band". Acta Materialia. 60 (16): 5773–5782. Bibcode:2012AcMat..60.5773B. doi:10.1016/j.actamat.2012.07.004. hdl:10044/1/13886. ISSN 1359-6454.
  31. Britton, T. B.; Dunne, F. P. E.; Wilkinson, A. J. (8 June 2015). "On the mechanistic basis of deformation at the microscale in hexagonal close-packed metals". Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 471 (2178): 20140881. Bibcode:2015RSPSA.47140881B. doi:10.1098/rspa.2014.0881. S2CID 138085929.

Experimental Micromechanical Characterisation Research Group

Dr. Ben Britton on Twitter

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.