New Fellows of The Royal Society

Professor Ian Manners

Professor Mervyn Miles

Press release issued: 20 May 2011

Two University of Bristol academics have achieved the rare distinction of being elected Fellows of the world's most eminent and oldest scientific academy in continuous existence.

Professors Ian Manners and Mervyn Miles from the Faculty of Science have been elected Fellows of the Royal Society, a Fellowship of 1,400 outstanding individuals who represent science, engineering and medicine, who form a global scientific network of the highest calibre.

Professor Manners, Professor of Inorganic and Materials Chemistry in the University's School of Chemistry, is an internationally renowned inorganic chemist. His research focuses on the molecular, polymer, supramolecular, and materials chemistry of inorganic elements.

Professor Miles is Head of the Nanophysics and Soft Matter Group in the University's School of Physics. He has pioneered the field of atomic force microscopy (AFM) of biomolecular structures including the development of video AFM and AFM with holographic tweezers for studies at the nanoscale.

Professor Jon Keating, Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University, said: "It is a great accolade to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. I am truly delighted for them as they are both worthy recipients who have joined a growing list of 35 FRS's at the University, whose work in the fields of science, engineering, technology and medicine has been honoured in this way.

"These awards not only reflect the scientific excellence for both Schools but also for the Faculty and the University."

The Royal Society is the world's oldest scientific academy and has been at the forefront of enquiry and discovery since its foundation in 1660. Past and present members include Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Dorothy Hodgkin, Isaac Newton, Christopher Wren and Stephen Hawking.

Fellows of the Royal Society are elected for life and designate themselves through the use of the letters FRS after their names. Only 44 new members are elected each year.

Further information

Royal Society citations

Professor Ian Manners

Ian Manners is distinguished for numerous contributions to inorganic and materials chemistry, and in particular for his development of new synthetic procedures leading to metallated polymers and inorganic ring structures, including main group elements. His group discovered and pioneered the ring-opening polymerization of strained metallocenophane precursors by thermal, anionic and photochemical methods. This led to the discovery of a new class of high molecular weight and processible metallopolymers with interesting properties such as etch resistance to plasmas and other radiation, semiconductivity and photoconductivity. Some of these now have commercial applications.

Professor Mervyn Miles

Mervyn Miles is distinguished for the development of a number of revolutionary new techniques of scanning-probe microscopy and demonstrating their potential for breaking into new areas of research in the study of biomolecular and polymer systems. One of these permits, for the first time, the study of dynamic changes in many systems of critical interest achieved through imaging rates of more than 100 frames per second, fast enough to follow previously inaccessible biomolecular processes and to fabricate nanoscale structures. A second is a unique form of force microscopy that senses the specimen surface through a few atomic layers of water molecules without mechanical contact, ideal for studying delicate biological structures at high resolution. A third involves adjustment of the damping of an atomic force cantilever in a liquid environment so as to improve sensitivity, significantly enhancing the rate of imaging and reducing the damage caused to soft materials.