16 Facts About Michael Cates

Michael Elmhirst Cates was born on 5 May 1961 and is a British physicist.

Michael Cates is the 19th Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and has held this position since 1 July 2015.

Michael Cates was previously Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, and has held a Royal Society Research Professorship since 2007.

Michael Cates's work focuses on the theory of soft matter, such as polymers, colloids, gels, liquid crystals, and granular material.

Michael Cates has worked on theories of active matter, particularly dense suspensions of self-propelled particles which can include motile bacteria.

Michael Cates's interests include fundamental field theories of active systems in which time-reversal symmetry is absent.

At Edinburgh, Cates was the Principal Investigator of an EPSRC Programme Grant, awarded in 2011, entitled Design Principles for New Soft Materials.

Michael Cates read Natural Sciences and earned a PhD at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1985, where he studied with Sam Edwards.

Michael Cates was a research fellow and lecturer at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge before moving to Edinburgh in 1995.

Michael Cates won the Bingham Medal of the US Society of Rheology in 2016.

Michael Cates had previously won the 2013 Weissenberg Award of the European Society of Rheology and the 2009 Gold Medal of the British Society of Rheology.

Michael Cates was awarded the 2009 Dirac Prize by the Institute of Physics.

Michael Cates has served as an elected member of the Council of the Royal Society, and chairs the International Scientific Committee of ESPCI ParisTech.

Michael Cates was an honorary fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge from 2013 until 2016, when he became instead a senior research fellow.

Michael Cates was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2019 for research on the rheology, dynamics, and thermodynamics of complex fluids, and for scientific leadership in the European Community.

Michael Cates has over 350 refereed scientific publications, with over 45,000 citations.