Rate My Professor Philip Withers

Professor Philip Withers is the Regius Professor of Materials in the School of Materials at the University of Manchester, where he also serves as Chief Scientist of the Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials. He earned his PhD in Metallurgy from the University of Cambridge in 1988, following an undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences (Physics) from the same institution awarded in 1985. After completing his doctorate on the metallurgy of metal matrix composites, he took up a lectureship at Cambridge before moving to Manchester in 1998 to assume a Chair in Materials Science. In 2008, he established the Henry Moseley X-ray Imaging Facility, now one of the world's most extensive suites for 3D X-ray imaging. He became the inaugural Director of the BP International Centre for Advanced Materials in 2012, focusing on materials for the energy sector. Since 2017, he has held the inaugural Regius Professorship of Materials and led as Chief Scientist at the Henry Royce Institute. In January 2026, he commenced a five-year joint appointment with Monash University. His research centres on applying advanced synchrotron, neutron, and laboratory X-ray techniques to observe the real-time, three-dimensional behaviour of engineering and natural materials under demanding conditions, particularly residual stresses, damage evolution, and correlative tomography linking metre to nanometre scales.

Withers is a world-leading authority on residual stress measurement and its effects on materials performance, underpinning predictions of component failure in aerospace, nuclear, and energy applications. He has pioneered techniques such as neutron and X-ray diffraction for stress mapping and non-destructive imaging of defects in industrial components. Key publications include the influential book 'An Introduction to Metal Matrix Composites' (1993, with T.W. Clyne), which has been cited over 3,300 times, and seminal works on residual stress measurement techniques and quantitative X-ray tomography. His research output exceeds 700 articles, with over 61,000 citations and an h-index reflecting substantial impact. Awards include election to the Royal Academy of Engineering (2005), the Royal Society Armourers & Brasiers’ Company Prize (2010), Fellowship of the Royal Society (2016), the ASM Henry Marion Howe Medal (2020), and Fellowship of Academia Europaea (2017). He chaired the UK Neutron Strategic Review for the Research Councils in 2017 and serves on various expert panels for funding bodies.