John Pendry

Sir John Brian Pendry, FRS FInstP (born 4 July 1943) is an English theoretical physicist known for his research into refractive indices and creation of the first practical "Invisibility Cloak". He is a professor of theoretical solid state physics at Imperial College London where he was head of the department of physics (1998–2001) and principal of the faculty of physical sciences (2001–2002). He is an honorary fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, (where he was an undergraduate) and an IEEE fellow. He received the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience “for transformative contributions to the field of nano-optics that have broken long-held beliefs about the limitations of the resolution limits of optical microscopy and imaging.”, together with Stefan Hell, and Thomas Ebbesen, in 2014

Education

Pendry was educated at Downing College, Cambridge, graduating with a Master of Arts degree in Natural Sciences and a PhD in 1969.

Career

John Pendry was born in Manchester, where his father was an oil representative, and took a degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge after which he was appointed as a research fellow at Downing College, Cambridge, between 1969 and 1975. He spent time at Bell Labs in 1972-3 and was head of the theory group at the SERC Daresbury Laboratory from 1975 to 1981, when he was appointed to the chair in theoretical physics at Imperial College, London, where he stayed for the rest of his career. Preferring administration to teaching, he was Dean of the Royal College of Science from 1993–6, head of the Physics Department from 1998–2001 and Principal of the Faculty of Physical Sciences 2001–2. He has authored over 300 research papers and encouraged many experimental inititatives.