Prof. C. Richard A. Catlow FRS recently turned 65, and I attended a very stimulating symposium held in his honour yesterday at University College London.
The initial session combined talks from Richard's third PhD student (Prof. Steve Parker), experimental "sidekick" (Prof. Alan Chadwick), and a selection of his current research stars (Scott Woodley, Alexey Sokol, David Scanlon and Nikolaos Dimitratos). Richard ended the afternoon with a public science lecture covering five career-spanning topics (with a stream of publications in Proc. Roy. Soc. and Nature; the former used to me more prestigious than the latter!).
1. Forces between atoms
- The development and validation of interatomic potentials, beginning with a fluoride potential in 1972.
2. Fascination of disorder
- Non-stoichiometric oxides and the utility of EXAFS.
3. Facilitates and facilitation
- The development of synchrotron diffraction at Daresbury Laboratories.
4. Transforming molecules
- Heterogeneous catalysis: modelling of barriers and pathways.
5. Impact and interdisciplinary
- How models of fission products; zeolite templating and planetary formation had wide-ranging impact.
The message of the day was "If the model has the right physics, you can't go too wrong".