At the time of the name change to Radar Research Establishment in 1953, the senior staff included: •
Robert Allan Smith (known as R.A. and as Robin). He was Head of the Physics Division, with a staff of about 150. Having worked previously on aspects of radio and radar, his attention had become focused on
solid state physics, because of the importance of semiconductors in the development of electronics and infra-red detectors. aerials for short wave radio, and
thermodynamics. After the name change to RRE, his "most significant book, in historical terms", The book "for which [he] is best known" His other books dealt with wave mechanics of crystalline solids, and, as editor, very high resolution spectroscopy. He left RRE to become Professor of Physics at the University of Sheffield in 1961, came to
MIT as Director of the Center for Materials Science and Engineering a year later, and became Vice-Chancellor of
Heriot-Watt University in 1968, retiring in 1974. He was an FRS, an FRSE, and received an OBE. •
George G. Macfarlane. He held a special appointment as Superintendent of the Physics Department, having been assigned to direct the work in theoretical physics. He had been trained as an electrical engineer, and had worked on theoretical aspects of radar prior to the name change of the establishment. One of the designers of the
Royal Radar Establishment Automatic Computer. Later, he became Deputy Director of the
National Physical Laboratory, then Director of RRE, then Controller of Research at the
Ministry of Technology and then Defence. He was knighted for his work. • R. P. Chasmar, Head of the infra-red group Head of Transistor Group at RRE, then the first Professor of Physics at the
University of Essex in 1963, and later Head of Laser Division of Rutherford Laboratory (1975–1983). He was named Fellow of the Royal Society in 1978. •
Cyril Hilsum, physicist. Work in industrial and government laboratories and in academe includes theoretical solid state physics and development of
liquid crystals. Elected
Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and
Fellow of the Royal Society, recipient of
Max Born Prize and
Faraday Medal. •
Edward G. S. Paige. Worked on semiconductors, with Denis Maines turned to
Surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices, led team that received Wolfe Medal of MOD and earned RRE a Queen's Award, later Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Oxford, awarded
Rayleigh Medal and
Duddell Medal. • Leo Pincherle. Head of the theoretical solid state physics group, and authority on band structure theory. His monograph on this topic was published in 1971. He also published a standard text on heat and thermodynamics, during his later appointment as Professor of Physics at Bedford College, London. • Albert M. Uttley, mathematician, computer scientist and experimental psychologist. Designed AI trainer, the TREAC digital computer, and contributed to early discussions of
cybernetics. Continued human factors work at National Physical Laboratory and then as Research Professor in the Experimental Psychology Laboratory of the University of Sussex. •
Philip Woodward had pioneered the application of probability theory to the filtering of radar signals, and wrote a monograph on the topic. His results included the Woodward Ambiguity Function, "the standard tool for waveform and matched filter analysis". He continued to direct theoretical work on radar after the establishment changed its name. Later, he led the group that developed the
Coral 66 computer programming language. He was, at different times, Honorary Professor in Electrical Engineering at the University of Birmingham and visiting professor in Cybernetics at the University of Reading. In 2000, the Woodward Building named in his honour was opened on the site that had then become DERA by
Sir John Chisholm. In 2005, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the
Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2009, he received the Dennis J. Picard Medal of the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), for Radar Technologies and Applications. Other members of the Physics Division who made significant contributions to several fields of endeavour include: • William Bardsley, physicist. His work at Malvern on growing crystals was published in a series of papers that have been referenced over 200 times through the time of writing (2010), in work on semiconductor devices and, in one instance, space science. •
Michael P. Barnett, (1929–2012). At Malvern he worked on theory of semiconductors, including organic materials. Later, he taught at MIT, the University of London, Columbia University and City University of New York. His earlier publications on several topics has been followed by more recent work on computational chemistry and symbolic calculation. • Paul N. Butcher, theoretical solid state physics. After working at Malvern, he was appointed to a chair at the University of Warwick, and has published four books. • Geoffrey V. Chester, theoretical physicist. At Malvern (1953–54), he worked on mathematical problems of radar. Later, at
Cornell University, he was Director of the
Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics (1968–74) and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (1986–91). •
J. B. Gunn, solid state physicist. At Malvern he worked on the physics of electronic devices. Later, at the IBM Research Laboratories in the U.S., he discovered the Gunn effect used in the
Gunn diode. • Several staff members under the supervision of
Cyril Hilsum, in conjunction with
George Gray and Ken Harrison of the
University of Hull, developed new, stable
liquid crystals in 1972, which were an immediate success as the basis of
display devices in the electronics and consumer products industries. This received the
Queen's Award for Technological Achievement in 1979. Patents from this development yielded royalties over £100 million, the largest of any MOD patent. • William D. Lawson, co-recipient of
Rank Prize for Optoelectronics in 1976, • Trevor Simpson Moss, solid state physicist, author of definitive monographs
Photoconductivity of the elements and
Optical Properties of semiconductors, and series editor of
Handbook on Semiconductors of the North-Holland Publishing Company. • S. Nielson, co-recipient of Rank Prize for Optoelectronics in 1976, •
Dennis Sciama, later cosmologist and FRS. At RRE he coauthored work on band structure calculations. • A.S. Young, co-recipient of Rank Prize for Optoelectronics in 1976. In 1956, R.A. Smith presented a comprehensive account of the contributions of RRE to physics to the Royal Society. ==Radar, Guided weapons and Engineering Divisions==