Professor Robert Wood

Robert Wood is Professor of Surface Engineering and Tribology and has 30 years’ experience of tribology and surface engineering. After his PhD in mechanical engineering at Southampton, he spent 4 years at BP before returning to Southampton to re-establish surface engineering/tribology research. His group was awarded £10M from EPSRC in 2008 to create the National Centre for Advanced Tribology at Southampton (nCATS) and was awarded a further £3M for research into Green Tribology. He is Chair of UK Tribology and was Editor-in-chief of the IoP Journal: Surface Topography - Metrology and Properties between 2016 and 2021. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2016. He was awarded the Annual Donald Julius Groen Prize in 2011, the Tribology Trust Silver medal in 2018 and the IoM3 Tom Bell Surface Engineering Medal in 2022; both national medals for his outstanding achievements in tribology and surface engineering respectively.