Held in high regard both at NPL and within the wider scientific community, Dr Robin Hart led a distinguished and hugely impactful career. He played a leading role in setting the strategy and direction at NPL, aligning the organisation’s scientific and engineering capability with the national challenges facing the UK.
Robin joined NPL in 2004 as Team Manager of the Photonics and Time team. He went on to lead both the Electromagnetic and Materials Divisions before being appointed Director of Programmes in 2011 and Strategy Director in 2017. As Strategy Director, Robin had responsibility for NPL's four focus areas aligned to the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy: Advanced Manufacturing; Digital; Energy and Environment; and Life Sciences and Health. In January 2022 Robin was appointed Deputy CEO of NPL.
Robin dedicated his life to science, graduating from Imperial College with a degree in physics and subsequently joining BP where he worked for five years as part of a team developing a new generation of thin film solar cells. During this period he split his time between Sunbury and Madrid and was responsible for measuring the degradation of the new devices.
Following his time at BP Robin continued his education, returning to the University at Bristol and undertaking a Masters degree in advanced Electronic Materials, followed by a PhD researching novel Giant Magnetoresistive films.
On completion of his studies, he moved to Cambridge to work in R&D for Oxford Instruments, first on the fabrication of superconducting devices as part of a collaboration with the European Space Agency, and then managing a business stream building advanced instrumentation for the NMI community in partnership with NPL. In 2004, he completed an MBA at Imperial College, where he specialised in identifying the critical success factors in new corporate ventures.
Robin was a devoted family man and, when not at work, enjoyed outdoor sports such as walking and skiing. A recent purchase of a camper van meant that they could venture further afield and spend weekends together, enjoying these pursuits as a family.
Robin will be sorely missed by those at NPL and colleagues in the metrology community.
Gordon Edwards was an Emeritus Fellow in Thermal Measurement. Gordon joined NPL in 1970 as part of a team measuring the speed of light. Following the success of this project he conducted further work determining the frequencies of stabilised infrared lasers.
In the 1980s he moved his focus to thermal metrology and led a number of projects using laser-based, optical techniques to measure temperatures in solids and gases. He has published well over 100 papers and reports.
After formally retiring, Gordon continued to work part-time in the area of thermal metrology before his passing in January 2025.
Gordon will be missed by all who knew him and our thoughts are with his family and friends.
Conway joined NPL in 1984. While at NPL he studied part-time for a BSc degree in physics from the Polytechnic of the South Bank and an MSc and DPhil from the University of Sussex.
Conway worked on the development of cryogenic and ultra-high vacuum environments for metrological applications such as cryogenic dielectric resonators and variable temperature scanning tunnelling microscopes. He also has considerable experience of developing computerised measurement and control systems for complex experiments.
Conway had a long and impactful career including; the development of the original NPL website, tools such as “genform” a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) script, the design of the cryogenic sapphire dielectric resonator for the European Space Agency (ESA) as part of a collaboration between NPL, Femto-ST and TimeTech GmbH, design of Cavities for Room-Temperature Solid-State Maser recognised by Physics World as one of the ‘Top 10 breakthroughs for 2012’ and the development and early deployment of NPLTime®.
Up until his passing Conway was working on the UK’s national time scale and providing scientific expertise for the NPLTime® service.
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