Tom C.B. McLeish
Durham University
May 1, 1962 – February 27, 2023
Theoretical Physicist
Awarded Bingham Medal 2010
Fellow, Elected 2015
Tom McLeish is currently a Professor in the Department of Physics and the Department of Chemistry at Durham University. He received his B.S. in Physics in 1984 and his Ph.D. in Polymer Physics in 1987,
both from the University of Cambridge. After receipt of his Ph.D., Tom was an ICI Research Fellow at the Cavendish Laboratories from 1987 to 1989. In 1989 he accepted a position as a Lecturer of
Physics at the University of Sheffield. In 1993 he moved to the University of Leeds where he was appointed Professor of Polymer Physics and Director of the UK Polymer IRC. He then served as the
Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Research at Durham University from 2008 to 2014, before recently moving to the University of York.
Dr. McLeish’s research interests include soft condensed matter physics, biological physics, polymer molecular rheology, and theoretical science. His research in polymer rheology includes synthesis,
molecular dynamics and polymer physics, fluid mechanics, polymer processing, flow instabilities, neutron scattering, phase separation, gelation, and crystallization. Additionally, he has contributed
important work on the rheology of surfactant solutions, colloids, electrorheological fluids, and other materials, encompassing both theoretical and experimental methods. He is known for his application
of the ideas of “dynamic tube dilution” to relaxation of star polymers, which he extended to broader classes of general branched polymers. He created a theoretical scheme that allows the effects of
relaxation at each stage to be accounted for on subsequent stages through the dynamic dilution ansatz. Additionally, Dr. McLeish and his collaborators published a series of papers predicting the
linear and non-linear dynamics and rheology of linear, star-branched, “H-shaped” molecules and other branched polymer topologies. These have become standard models for understanding the relaxation
and rheology of these polymers. He has extended these ideas to the prediction of strongly-nonlinear polymer-processing flows. Dr. McLeish authored the book Faith and Wisdom in Science,
published in 2014.
He served as Director of the Microscale Polymer Processing Consortium and is currently the Vice-President of Science at the Institute of Physics. He is a member of the Biophysical Science Institute,
the Centre for Materials Physics, and the Durham Centre for Soft Matter. In recognition of his contributions to rheology, Dr. McLeish has been awarded the Weissenberg Medal of the European Society
of Rheology (2007), as well as the Bingham Medal of The Society of Rheology (2010). Additionally, he was elected
a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2011.