Doctor of Science for Professor Matthew Almond

Thursday, 09 July 2015

Doctor of Science award for Professor Matthew Almond

Today Professor Matthew Almond, Professor of Chemistry Education and newly-elected Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences will be awarded a Doctor of Science degree by the University of Reading for the research in inorganic and analytical chemistry that he has carried out since he obtained his DPhil degree at University of Oxford in 1984.

The title of Professor Almond’s thesis was “Applications of Infrared Spectroscopy” and spans areas from fundamental studies of oxo-metal species in low-temperature matrices through  precursors for semiconductor materials and leading on to studies of archaeological and forensic samples. During this period Professor Almond has published around 120 papers in the refereed scientific literature and has supervised around 50 research students. The examiners for Professor Almond’s thesis commented that his work was “characterised throughout by well-planned experiments, careful attention to detail and rigorous analysis and interpretation of data”  that “Professor Almond has a prolific and influential research career” and that “ he has shown himself to be a leading international expert in the area of infrared spectroscopy”. Professor Almond will graduate alongside the chemistry students on 9 July this year.

It is noteworthy that Professor Almond was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship last year and that it is an extremely rare honour for an academic to be granted both a National Teaching Fellowship and a Higher Doctorate for Research.