Professor Ekhard K. H. Salje FRS | |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | |
| Died | 24 February 2025[1][2] |
| Nationality | German andBritish |
| 6th President ofClare Hall, Cambridge | |
| In office 2001–2008 | |
| Preceded by | DameGillian Beer |
| Succeeded by | SirMartin Harris |
Ekhard Karl Hermann Salje,FRS (1946-2025) was anEmeritus Professor, and formerlyProfessor of Mineralogy and Petrology and Head of theDepartment of Earth Sciences,Cambridge University.
Ekhard Salje completed his University Teacher’s Dissertation in 1972, and by 1983 was the Head of Department at the Institute for Crystallography and Petrology at theLeibniz University Hannover. In 1985 he moved to Cambridge where was awarded a Professorship in Mineral Physics in the Department of Earth Sciences in 1992. He worked jointly in the Department of PhysicsCavendish Laboratory.
In 1998 he assumed the post of Head ofDepartment of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, which he retained until October 2008.
In October 2001 he became President ofClare Hall, a post he held until 2008 when he was succeeded bySir Martin Harris.[3]
Professor Salje's research is focused in the field of mineralogy and mineral physics using approaches that combine theoretical and experimental methods. In particular, he is concerned with the stability of minerals and the transformation processes that occur within them in response to changes in temperature and pressure. His work includes the study of structural phase transitions, the formation of polaronic states in transition metal oxides likeWO3, andferroelasticity. The dynamics of phase transitions includes the movements of nano-domains which progress as avalanches in most cases. He discovered avalanche behaviour by experiment and computer simulation in ferroelastics, ferroelectrics andmartensitic alloys. His work in the field ofmineral physics was rewarded in 1996 when he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.[4] This has been followed by him being elected Chevalier dans l’ordre des Palmes Academiques (France) in 2004 and awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2007.[4] He was fellow of the Leopoldina (Nat. Academy of Germany) and the Royal Society of the Arts and Sciences of Barcelona.
He is the co-author of the report by the Royal Society on nuclear waste and was chairman of the Steering Committee of the National Institute for Environmental e-Sciences. As Programme Director of theCambridge-MIT Institute he was responsible for joint research in the field of Future Technologies. He was chairman of the Cambridge e-science Centre and chairman of the steering committee of the Cambridge Environmental Initiative (CEI) which advises on environmental research in Cambridge. He was president of the British branch of theAlexander von Humboldt Association. He was chairman of the Cambridge European Trust, member of the Wissenschaftsrat (Germany), Int. Advisory Board of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany), and the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (UK).
Professor Salje has been visiting professor in Japan (mombusho chair), Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig, Univers. Paris VI, Bilbao, Grenoble, Le Mans. He was hon. Professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University (China) and Ulam fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
He has published over 700 scientific papers and 3 books. His h-index is >92 (Google scholar)
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| Preceded by | President of Clare Hall, Cambridge 2001-2008 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Head of Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge 1998 - 2008 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Professor of Mineralogy and Petrology,University of Cambridge 1994-2014[1] | Succeeded by |
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