Wolfson announces new Travel Award

Thanks to a generous legacy from the late Professor Peter Flewitt, Wolfson is excited to announce a new endowed travel award. This annual award provides funding to support graduate students in their fieldwork, conferences and other trips linked to their studies.

The Peter Flewitt Travel Award, available to students in any field, is funded in perpetuity in Professor Peter Flewitt’s name. A Member of Common Room, Professor Flewitt was a much loved and greatly respected academic who made large contributions to material science and more specifically to nuclear research. He was a consistently kind and generous person in both his encouragement to students and his support to colleagues.

Peter was born on 6 January 1941 and served a number of roles throughout his career. His early career was based at the University of Sheffield, he then worked for the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) and its successor companies and, from 1993, at the University of Bristol as an Honorary Professor in the Interface Analysis Centre. Throughout his career Peter supported many PhD students, undergraduates and postdoctoral researchers at the Centre into research of nuclear materials. He also contributed to hundreds of research publications publishing more than 350 papers over his career and co-authoring three books. He was given many awards for his work including a DSc (1980) via Imperial College London, the Colclough Medal & Prize from the Institute of Materials (1997), the Plowden Award from the British Nuclear Energy Society (1993) and election to the Royal Academy of Engineering (1999). Peter was a Senior Fellow in the Department of Materials at Oxford University as well as holding many other professorships at universities around the world.

The College hopes that the establishment of this travel award will give unique opportunities to students here at Wolfson. “Travel awards like this make a real difference for students, enabling them to present their research at important international conferences and providing them with opportunities to gain critical, expert feedback and shape their thinking now and into the future” said Emily Eastham, Wolfson Senior Tutor. “Students can also apply for assistance with the costs associated with travel for fieldwork which can otherwise be prohibitive and limit the scope and potential of their research.”