A professor at Huddersfield University is the first UK scientist to receive the most distinguished prize to be awarded by a leading French body.
Ted Charsley is an emeritus professor of the university, where he headed the Centre for Thermal Studies. He is also a consultant for the university’s commercial chemistry research unit, IPOS.
Prof Charsley is a leading authority on thermal analysis and calorimetry – the science of measuring heat.
Now he is the first Briton to be awarded the Prix Calvet – a prize bestowed every two years by L’Association Française de Calorimétrie et d’Analyse Thermique (AFCAT). The award is named after the French calorimetrist Prof Edouard Calvet.
Working with the university’s Dr Gareth Parkes and Jim Rooney, Prof Charsley has been applying the technique known as sample controlled thermal analysis to differential scanning calorimetry. His work in this field is one of the factors that contributed to him being named 2015 Prix Calvet winner.
Prof Charsley has more than 40 years’ experience in the application of thermal analysis and allied techniques to the study of industrial problems. Before starting his academic career, he was research director of Stanton Redcroft Ltd, a company which made scientific measuring equipment. He has written more than 120 publications and has two patents.
In 2007, he received the Mettler-Toledo Award of the North American Thermal Analysis Society (NATAS) and in 2008 the NATAS Fellows Award, when he also became the first English scientist to be awarded an honorary lifetime membership of the International Confederation for Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry, of which he is a past-president.
He became an emeritus professor of Huddersfield in 2008.
The latest award coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Thermal Methods Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The anniversary was marked by an event at Churchill College, Cambridge, at which all past chairmen of the group – including Prof Charsley – received certificates of appreciation.
