Professor John Goodenough has been selected by the Royal Society of London as one of eight new Foreign Members inducted in 2010.
On May 21, 2010, Professor John B. Goodenough, who holds the Virginia H. Cockrell Chair in Engineering in the Mechanical Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Austin, was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. The Royal Society selects Foreign Members annually, from "among persons of the greatest eminence for their scientific discoveries and attainments" writes Professor Lorna Casselton FRS, vice-president and foreign secretary. Dr. Goodenough has been invited to attend Admissions Day on July 16, 2010 in London, England.
The 350 year-old society is a fellowship currently composed of 1326 Fellows and 136 Foreign Members. The eminent scientists, engineers and technologists are elected through a rigorous peer-review process. The main criterion for election is scientific excellence. Each year 44 Fellows from the UK and the Commonwealth are invited to join, as well as eight Foreign Members. Fellows designate themselves through the use of FRS after their name. Foreign Members use the ForMemRS designation.
Current Fellows include Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawkings, Harry Kroto, Tim Berners Lee, Paul Nurse and John Sulston, as well as 25 Nobel Prize winners and holders of equally prestigious awards among British Fellows. Previous Fellows include Isaac Newton, Christopher Wren, Michael Faraday, Charles Darwin, Ernest Rutherford and Dorothy Hodkin. There are 136 Foreign Members, and of those, 49 are Nobel prize winners.
Biographical sketch from the Royal Society's new Foreign Members page
Virginia H. Cockrell Centennial Chair of Engineering, Texas Materials Institute, University of Texas at Austin John Goodenough is distinguished for his pioneering contributions to solid state science and technology. For more than 50 years his insights, vision, ideas, knowledge and research have unified chemistry, physics and materials science on understanding the chemical and physical properties of complex oxides and the design and development of advanced technological materials. As Head of Inorganic Chemistry at Oxford (1976-1986) he first identified and developed the oxide material now used, worldwide, for high energy-density rechargeable lithium batteries, ubiquitous in today's portable electronic devices. Goodenough's outstanding contributions to science and society were recognized by the 2001 Japan Prize for Science and Technology of Environment Conscious Materials.
For more information on the life and work of Dr. Goodenough, best known for the design the lithium-ion battery, please see his faculty directory page and his 2009 Enrico Fermi Award news story, which details a lifetime of research efforts.
