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Ben Britton

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"Benjamin Britton" redirects here. For the British composer, see Benjamin Britten.

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

(1985-04-18) 18 April 1985 (age 39)
Other namesBMatB[3]
EducationMagdalen College School, Oxford
Alma materUniversity of Oxford (BA, DPhil)
Scientific career
FieldsMaterials science
Micromechanics
Deformation
Strain
Electron backscatter diffraction[1]
InstitutionsThe University of British Columbia
Imperial College London
ThesisA high resolution electron backscatter diffraction study of titanium and its alloys (2009)
Doctoral advisorAngus Wilkinson[2]
Websitewww.expmicromech.com Edit this at Wikidata

Thomas Benjamin Britton CEng FIMMM (born 18 April 1985) is a materials scientist, engineer and Associate Professor at The University of British Columbia. His research interests are in micromechanics, deformation, strain and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD).[1] 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.

Early life and education

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Britton grew up in Oxford and was privately educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford.[citation needed] He graduated with a Master of Engineering (MEng) in materials science from the Department of Materials, University of Oxford in 2007 where he was a student of St Catherine's College, Oxford.[2] In 2010, he completed a Doctor of Philosophy degree in materials science, for electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) research of titanium and its alloys supervised by Angus Wilkinson.[2]

Research and career

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After completing his PhD, Britton spent two years in Oxford as a postdoctoral research associate studying materials for fission and fusion power.[4] He received a fellowship in nuclear research in the faculty of engineering at Imperial College London in 2012.[5] 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".[6][7] From 2017, Britton was a senior lecturer in materials science at the Centre for Nuclear Engineering. He was the course director of Imperial's Master of Science (MSc) program in advanced nuclear engineering and deputy director of the Centre for Nuclear Engineering.[8]

In 2021, Britton was appointed as an Associate Professor in the department of Materials Engineering at The University of British Columbia.[9][10] He holds a visiting readership at Imperial College London, as well as an academic visiting scholar at the University of Oxford.[10]

His first PhD student, Vivian Tong, worked on zirconium alloys, and solved a longstanding issue in the zirconium manufacturing sector.[11] Britton develops high resolution microscopy techniques, including forescatter electron imaging for topographic and phase contrast.[12]

Public engagement

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Britton has led outreach and engagement activity aimed at changing public perception about nuclear energy,[13] and regularly blogs about early career academic life.[3] He has appeared on the podcast Scientists Not the Science.[14] 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 and development (R&D) budget.[15] He is a trustee of the charity Pride in STEM, through which he was nominated for the Gay Times honours in 2017.[16][17][18] He spoke at the Institute of Physics (IOP) pride of physics celebration in August 2018.[19] 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.[20]

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.[21] He has also contributed written evidence to the House of Lords about nuclear technology.[22]

Britton has also campaigned for the removal of Imperial College's newly-imposed application fee for its postgraduate programmes, citing the policy's detriments against underprivileged applicants.[23] As at the time of reporting, the university has not removed its postgraduate programme application fee policy.

Awards and honours

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In 2014 Britton was awarded the IOM3 Silver Medal (Outstanding contribution to materials science, engineering and technology by individual under 30).[24] In 2016 he won one of five awards for the engineers trust's "Young Engineer" of the year, being described by the Royal Academy of Engineering as one of the UK's "future engineering leaders".[25] In 2014 he was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM).[26]

Selected publications

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  • Strains, planes, and EBSD in materials science.[27]
  • The effect of crystal orientation on the indentation response of commercially pure titanium: experiments and simulations.[28]
  • Controlling the orientation, edge geometry, and thickness of chemical vapor deposition graphene. [29]
  • High resolution electron backscatter diffraction measurements of elastic strain variations in the presence of larger lattice rotations.[30]
  • Measurement of residual elastic strain and lattice rotations with high resolution electron backscatter diffraction.[31]
  • Stress fields and geometrically necessary dislocation density distributions near the head of a blocked slip band[32]
  • On the mechanistic basis of deformation at the microscale in hexagonal close-packed metals[33]

References

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  1. ^ a b Ben Britton publications indexed by Google Scholar Edit this at Wikidata
  2. ^ a b c Britton, Thomas Ben (2009). A high resolution electron backscatter diffraction study of titanium and its alloys. ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). OCLC 863582584. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.547449.
  3. ^ a b "Dr Ben Britton – medium/@BMatB". medium.com. Medium. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  4. ^ "Ben Britton | Materials for Fusion & Fission Power". mffp.materials.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 11 January 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  5. ^ "Royal Academy of Engineering honours young engineers". iom3.org. IOM3. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  6. ^ "RAEng Research Fellowship - Current and recent awards". raeng.org.uk. Royal Academy of Engineering. Archived from the original on 11 January 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  7. ^ Ford, Jason (4 September 2014). "Materials study aims at improving nuclear reactor performance". theengineer.co.uk. The Engineer. Archived from the original on 15 January 2019. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  8. ^ "CNE staff". imperial.ac.uk. Imperial College London. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  9. ^ "Dr Ben Britton appointed as an Associate Professor at UBC | Imperial News | Imperial College London". Imperial News. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  10. ^ a b "Ben Britton". UBC Materials Engineering. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  11. ^ "2017 June Wilson Prize awarded to Dr Vivian Tong | Imperial News | Imperial College London". Imperial News. Retrieved 17 October 2022.
  12. ^ 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.
  13. ^ "Imperial experts share their thoughts on Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant | Imperial News | Imperial College London". Imperial News. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
  14. ^ 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.
  15. ^ "About | Science is Vital". scienceisvital.org.uk. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  16. ^ "Our Organisation". prideinstem.org. Pride in STEM. 27 November 2018. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  17. ^ Britton, Ben (2019). "No sexuality please, we're scientists". youtube.com. YouTube.
  18. ^ Pink, Chris (12 July 2018). "A walk on the Pride side". Chemistry World. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
  19. ^ Anon (2018). "LGBT physicists celebrated at IOP Pride of Physics event". iop.org. Institute of Physics. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  20. ^ 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. S2CID 164234381.
  21. ^ "Environmentalists appeal to Macron for nuclear". World Nuclear News. 4 July 2017. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
  22. ^ "Nuclear research and technology: Breaking the cycle of indecision" (PDF). Parliament of the United Kingdom. 2017. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  23. ^ "Imperial academics call for scrapping of new application fee". Research Professional News. 5 October 2020. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  24. ^ IOM3. "Silver Medal". www.iom3.org. Retrieved 8 January 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  25. ^ "Royal Academy honours engineers' early career achievements - The Engineer The Engineer". theengineer.co.uk. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  26. ^ Anon (2016). "End of year review". iom3.org. IOM3. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
  27. ^ Angus J. Wilkinson; T. Ben. Britton (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. Wikidata Q56866313.
  28. ^ T. B. Britton; H. Liang; F. P. E. Dunne; A. J. Wilkinson (11 November 2009). "The effect of crystal orientation on the indentation response of commercially pure titanium: experiments and simulations". Proceedings of the Royal Society A. 466 (2115): 695–719. Bibcode:2010RSPSA.466..695B. doi:10.1098/RSPA.2009.0455. ISSN 1364-5021. Wikidata Q56866326.
  29. ^ Adrian T Murdock; Antal Koos; T Ben Britton; et al. (1 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. Wikidata Q33456924.
  30. ^ T B Britton; A J Wilkinson (18 January 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. Wikidata Q51414840.
  31. ^ T.B. Britton; A.J. Wilkinson (27 May 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. Wikidata Q56866321.
  32. ^ T. Benjamin Britton; Angus J. Wilkinson (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. ISSN 1359-6454. Wikidata Q56866317.
  33. ^ T. B. Britton; F. P. E. Dunne; A. J. Wilkinson (27 May 2015). "On the mechanistic basis of deformation at the microscale in hexagonal close-packed metals". Proceedings of the Royal Society A. 471 (2178): 20140881. doi:10.1098/RSPA.2014.0881. ISSN 1364-5021. Wikidata Q56866238.


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