Professor Nigel Hussey new HFML director
On the first of September 2013, the High Field Magnet Laboratory (HFML) in Nijmegen will get a new director: Professor Nigel Hussey (1966). He is the successor of Professor Jan Kees Maan, who has led the lab for twenty years. During this time the HFML has started a collaboration with FOM, which has helped put it on the map both in The Netherlands and internationally.Simultaneously with his appointment as director of the HFML, Hussey will also take up a position as a full professor of Correlated electron systems in high magnetic fields at the Radboud University Nijmegen.
Hussey is currently director of research and professor in solid state physics at the School of Physics of the University of Bristol. He investigates these materials also with high magnetic fields and has been a user of the HFML for years. Hussey: "I am very excited about the prospect of working at the HFML. High magnetic fields have been instrumental in some of the major discoveries of the last decade in solid state physics and I am looking forward to continuing this legacy and contributing to the success of the HFML in the coming years".
The current director Maan has great confidence in his successor: "Nigel Hussey is a leading expert on correlated electron systems in high magnetic fields. He is a regular user of the HFML and I am sure the HFML faces a great future with him".
Short biography
Hussey's career began at the University of Sussex in the south of England, where he studied Physics and European studies. He received his PhD at the same university, with his thesis 'Thermal Measurements of High Temperature Oxide Superconductors between 40mK and 2K'. Then he started working as an EPSRC Research Associate at the University of Cambridge. In 1997 he moved to Japan and did two years of research at the University of Tokyo. After that, he returned to England as a lecturer at the University of Loughborough. Since 2000, Hussey works at Bristol University, where he was appointed professor in 2006.
About the HFML
The HFML is a partnership between the Radboud University and FOM. The lab has very strong magnets, which are unique in the world. The extreme conditions in these magnets bring surprising properties of materials to light. A major advantage of research with magnetic fields is that they are non-destructive: you can study materials without damaging them. It is also possible to levitate objects with magnetic forces and in this way investigate the effect of gravity on matter. The HFML is the coordinator of the European Magnetic Field Laboratory (EMFL), the European collaboration of magnets laboratories in Nijmegen, Dresden, Grenoble and Toulouse.