Durham University expert receives top honour

Durham University expert receives top honour

A Durham University expert, David Hoyle, has won a prestigious national academic honour for his research in rheology - the study of soft matter.

The award, the Vernon Harrison Annual Doctoral Prize 2011, is conferred by the British Society of Rheology and is open to any person who has successfully submitted a thesis on rheology from higher education establishments throughout the UK.

Hoyle, who is a Knowledge Transfer Fellow within the Department of Chemistry and a member of the Durham Centre for Soft Matter, secured a coveted first prize award which recognises the originality and quality of his thesis. Hoyle’s award winning thesis focuses on different types of polymers and how they flow and stretch at different velocities and temperatures.

Hoyle said: "The study of rheology or soft matter, as it is often referred, is a vital area for delivering costs savings and improving efficiency in industry. I am therefore absolutely delighted to be recognised in this important area with a national award decided upon by the Council of the British Society of Rheology.

"My thesis focuses on how different polymers flow and react at a molecular level which can add real commercial and environmental benefit to manufacturing processes including plastic injection moulding and fibre spinning and more generally to industries such as packaging and plastics."

This is the third accolade in recent times that academics in the University’s Durham Centre for Soft Matter, which brings together expertise from the Departments of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Engineering, have been recognised.

Suzanne Fielding of the Department of Physics received the 2010 Arthur B. Metzner Early Career Award of the Society of Rheology and Professor Tom McLeish of the Department of Physics and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Research received the 2009 Gold Medal of the British Society of Rheology. 

The Durham Centre for Soft Matter brings together internationally recognised expertise with the aim of providing a focal point for soft matter and polymer research at Durham University.

Soft matter includes liquids, colloids, polymers, foams, gels, granular materials, and a number of biological materials that are defined as matter comprising a variety of physical states that are easily deformed by thermal stresses or thermal fluctuations.