Professor Lindsay Greer marks new chapter for materials science and metallurgy

Professor Lindsay Greer, Fellow of Sidney Sussex and Head of Department, joined the Vice Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz this week to mark the start of construction of a new £41m building at West Cambridge.

Modern metallurgical research at Cambridge began in a small laboratory at Sidney in the 1880s. Charles Heycock and Francis Neville conducted pioneering research into the boiling and freezing points and microstructures of metal alloys. Their work led directly to the founding of the Department of Metallurgy.

Now, 100 years after the College’s laboratory was replaced by central facilities elsewhere in Cambridge, the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy is preparing to move. Work is scheduled for completion in autumn 2012. The new building will occupy a footprint similar to that of the gardens of Cloister Court. The original laboratory by contrast occupied a space similar to the College cycle sheds.

This is an archived news story, first posted in 2010.