Reflections on Microscopy and Analysis: From Viewing the Small World to Leading on a Larger Stage

It is an extraordinary honor to receive the Henry Clifton Sorby Award of the International Metallographic Society (IMS). I am humbled to be included in a list of Sorby Awardees that includes two giants who paved the way in my own field of X-ray analysis in electron-beam instruments: Raimond Castaing and Peter Duncumb. I am delighted to be added to the list that includes two of my early mentors and teachers in Cambridge, Brian Ralph and Robert Honeycombe. I will celebrate the award when I have the chance to raise a glass with my good friends and earlier Sorby awardees, Gareth Thomas, Joe Goldstein, George VanderVoort, and Arlan Benscoter. Sorby has been described as ‘‘The greatest scientist that Sheffield has ever produced’’, which those of us from neighboring Leeds would view as being damned with faint praise. Sorby invented the science of metallography in 1864. He started by pioneering the microscopy of meteorites and invented the ‘‘Spectrum Microscope’’. As I mentioned, I was raised in Leeds, a scant 30 miles north of where Sorby first practiced metallography. Much of my microscopy career has involved metallography of meteorites and various aspects of spectrometry in the (electron) microscope. So, given these parallels, perhaps there is some method to the IMS Awards Committee’s madness in my nomination. The Award recognizes ‘‘a lifetime (of) achievement’’, which is a rather daunting thought, and prompted me to think what I might have gleaned from my ‘‘lifetime’’ in the field that would be worth passing on. First and foremost, right now is the time to acknowledge that this award reflects my great good fortune in working with students and colleagues who are far more talented than me. Growing such a network has been the greatest fun in my professional life. So, to those younger members of the audience, let me emphasize this primary point. Always say thank you. No one ever receives an award such as this, based solely on his own merits. Start early in your career by thanking the students in your labs and lectures. If you’ve done your job well, by the time you reach my age, some of those students will be the providers of funding for your research, suppliers of instruments for your labs, your entree into partnerships with major companies, other universities and national labs, and the source of new employment opportunities for you—and your colleagues. I have experienced all of the above. So start networking at the earliest opportunity. Electronic communications media make this task so much easier than the handwritten letters and land-line phone calls, which were for me the only way to network, apart from professional conferences. So use LinkedIn, Plaxo, and Facebook. Use this technology to your benefit—network, network, network! It’s worth taking stock of how I reached the point where my cumulative accomplishments were enough to merit this award. By some standards, I have had a successful career; as a microscopist, as a professor of materials science, and as a university administrator. If I were to present a condensed history of these careers, they would be summarized as follows: