Robert O. Ritchie facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Robert Ritchie
ForMemRS FREng
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Robert Ritchie at the Royal Society admissions day in London, July 2017
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| Born |
Robert Oliver Ritchie
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| Alma mater | University of Cambridge (BA, MA, PhD, ScD) |
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| Scientific career | |
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| Institutions | University of California, Berkeley Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| Thesis | Cyclic crack growth in steels (1973) |
| Doctoral advisor | John F. Knott |
| Doctoral students | Subra Suresh |
Robert Oliver Ritchie is a famous professor of engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He also works as a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Robert Ritchie's Education
Robert Ritchie studied at the University of Cambridge in England. He earned several degrees, including a PhD, in physics and materials science. During his PhD studies, he worked closely with a scientist named John F. Knott.
What Robert Ritchie Studies
Professor Ritchie is well-known for his research into how different materials break or get tired. This includes both natural materials, like human bone, and man-made materials used in buildings or machines. He looks at how tiny parts of these materials behave when they are stressed.
His work helps us understand why materials break and how long they can last before they fail. This is called fracture mechanics and fatigue.
As of 2017, he is very interested in new types of materials. These include high entropy alloys and bulk metallic glasses. He also studies the strength of human bone. Another area he explores is creating new strong materials inspired by nature, which is called biologically inspired engineering.
Awards and Honors
Robert Ritchie has received many important awards for his work. In 2013, he won the David Turnbull Lectureship from the Materials Research Society. The next year, in 2014, he received the Acta Materialia Gold Medal. In 2017, he was given the Morris Cohen Award.
He was also the very first person to win the Sir Alan Cottrell Gold Medal in 2009. This award comes from the International Congress on Fracture. In 2006, he received the August Wöhler Medal from the European Structural Integrity Society.
Professor Ritchie is a member of many important science and engineering groups. These include the Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK and the National Academy of Engineering in the United States. He is also a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. In 2017, he became a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS).
