William E. Lee

William E. Lee is Sêr Cymru Professor of Materials at Bangor University in Wales and Emeritus Professor in the Department of Materials and Distinguished Research Fellow in the Institute of Security Science and Technology, Imperial College London. He has a BSc in Physical Metallurgy from Aston (1980) and a DPhil in Radiation Damage in Sapphire from  Oxford, UK (1983). He worked as a Post-Doc with Arthur Heuer at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, and as Assistant Professor with Dennis Readey at the Ohio State University, Columbus, USA before returning to the UK as a Lecturer at the University of Sheffield in 1989 where he became Professor in 1999 and Founding Director of the Immobilisation Sciences Laboratory in 2001. From 2006-2010 he was head of the Department of Materials, at Imperial College, later becoming Director of the Centre for Nuclear Engineering, Founding Director of the Centre for Advanced Structural Ceramics and Co-Director of the Institute of Security Science and Technology. He has supervised 67 students to successful completion of their PhDs and published over 450 papers and 5 books on ceramics. Bill has advised the UK Government in a number of roles including as Deputy Chair of the Government advisory Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM). He advised the US Government as a member of the US National Academies Committee assessing the DOE $6B/annum Defense Environmental Cleanup Program (2017-19) which reported to Congress in 2019.

He has advised industry as a member of the Technical Advisory Boards of Morgan Advanced Materials plc, Tokamak Energy plc, and RHI-Magnesita. He is a member of the World Academy of Ceramics (2015), gave the Institute of Metals Research Chinese Academy of Sciences Lee Hsun Lecture (2014), the Mellor Memorial Lecture (UK Ceramic Society, 2012) and was awarded the Wakabayashi Prize of the Technical Association of Refractories, Japan (2004) as well as the Platinum Medal (2021), Pfeil Award (2000) and Rosenhain Medal (1999) of the UKs Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2012) and is a Foreign Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering (2017).

Bill’s American Ceramic Society roles include reviewing lots of papers for the Journal, serving on the Board of Directors from 2010-13 and 2015-18, and being President (2016-17). He received the Kingery Award in 2012.

His research interests include refractories, whitewares, glasses and glass ceramics, electroceramics, structural ceramics and he currently leads a team developing ceramics for use in extreme environments including as nuclear fuels and wasteforms. He lives in an Arts and Crafts house in Lyme Regis in SW England with his wife Jacky.