A Visiting Professor at the University of Strathclyde’s Department of Physics has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).
Professor Graham Machin is also a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Senior Fellow at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), in which Strathclyde is a strategic partner. He has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of a career spanning more than 30 years in the field of temperature measurement.
Definition of temperature
With his NPL research team, Professor Machin has had a significant global impact on the definition and measurement of temperature, including redefining the unit of temperature, the kelvin, and developing new standards and methods for high temperature measurement, as well as developing temperature measurement solutions in fields including space, nuclear decommissioning and medicine.
He is a founder member of the UK Body Temperature Measurement Group (UKBTMG), which aims to reduce avoidable deaths and improve health service triaging. He also serves as the UK member on the International Weights and Measures Committee for Thermometry (CCT).
The final list of up to 73 Fellowship candidates and up to 24 Foreign Membership candidates is confirmed by the Royal Society’s Council in April and a confidential ballot of Fellows is held in May. A candidate is elected if they secure two-thirds of votes of those Fellows voting.
Professor Machin joined NPL in 1991 and has published more than 270 research papers in the course of his career. He said:
It is a great honour to have my work recognised by being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. I pay tribute to the many excellent scientists in my team, without whom I could not have achieved all that I have.
His awards include a DSc from the University of Birmingham (2015), the 2012 InstMC (Institute of Measurement & Control) Callendar Medal for improvements in temperature measurement and the 2021 InstMC Sir Harold Hartley Medal for “outstanding contributions to the technology of measurement and control”. In 2022, his NPL team was awarded the joint InstMC/WCSIM Cornish Award for outstanding achievement in the building of scientific instruments and was the joint winner of the NPL Impact from Science award for nuclear decommissioning metrology. Professor Machin also served as an invited member of the UK Parliamentary and Scientific Committee from 2022 to 2024.
Professor Machin joins Professor Martin Dawson, Director of Research at Strathclyde’s Institute of Photonics, and Professor Keith Ridgway, Senior Executive – Manufacturing, as an FRS.
Scientific endeavour
Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society, said: “It is with great pleasure that I welcome the latest cohort of outstanding researchers into the Fellowship of the Royal Society. Their achievements represent the very best of scientific endeavour, from basic discovery to research with real-world impact across health, technology and policy. From tackling global health challenges to reimagining what AI can do for humanity, their work is a testament to the power of curiosity-driven research and innovation.
“The strength of the Fellowship lies not only in individual excellence, but in the diversity of backgrounds, perspectives and experiences each new member brings. This cohort represents the truly global nature of modern science and the importance of collaboration in driving scientific breakthroughs.”