Professor McGreevy, Director of ISIS from 2012 until October 2021 and Chair of the League of Advanced European Neutron Sources (LENS) has become a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), recognising his outstanding service to science and his long-term significant impact in the field of neutron scattering.
Robert graduated and received his PhD from Oxford University and was a Royal Society research fellow and lecturer there until 1992. His ‘neutron career’ began in 1978 as a PhD student at Oxford University, carrying out experiments at the ILL, the Dido and Pluto reactors at Harwell in the UK, before becoming a postdoc and one of the first users of ISIS.
He says, “I am delighted to receive this honour, more as a recognition of the many people I have been fortunate enough to work with, rather than the work I have done, both at Harwell and ISIS and around the world.”
During the 1980’s he developed the Reverse Monte Carlo method for structural modelling, enabling the study of disordered in materials ranging from simple liquids to superconductors. In 1992, Robert moved from Oxford to Sweden, becoming Director of the Studsvik Neutron Research Laboratory between 1994 and 2002, when he moved back to the UK to become a Division Head at ISIS. After a year at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US, he became Director of ISIS in 2012.
Prof Mark Thomson is Executive Chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, which funds ISIS. He says, “Congratulations to Robert on this honour recognising his contribution to science over many decades both for STFC and for the wider neutron science research community. Roberts most recent work at STFC, as Director until 2021 of the UK National ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, has helped put in place a legacy of development that will see us through the next decade and will enable many hundreds of research teams to benefit from this world leading facility."
Robert has been actively involved in European collaborations over many years, from being one of the earliest users to benefit from an EU Access programme, and now Chair of the League of Advanced European Neutron Sources (LENS), launched in 2019.
