Bath Researcher Scoops Top Neutron Scattering Prize

Dr Anita Zeidler (University of Bath) has been awarded the prestigious '2014 B.T.M. Willis Prize' for neutron scattering in recognition of her studies of a wide range of materials including water, and their interactions at the atomic and molecular level.

Anita has played a major role in better understanding the structure and dynamics of liquid and amorphous materials under extreme conditions, for example high-temperatures and high-pressures. She has also led an investigation into quantum effects in water, where its structure and dynamical properties are governed by a competition between intra-molecular and inter-molecular quantum effects. Anita has also made a substantial contribution to data analysis of this work and has been at the forefront in the race to develop oxygen isotope substitution in structural studies of liquid and amorphous materials.

The B.T.M. Willis prize is awarded annually by the Neutron Scattering Group of the Institute of Physics and the Royal Society of Chemistry for outstanding contributions to neutron scattering science.

The majority of Dr Zeidler's work uses the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble and the ISIS neutron source at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxford, both world leading research centres which are supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).