Professor Robert Miles

PhD, MSc, BSc

Professor Miles was educated at Imperial College where he obtained an honours degree in Physics, a Masters in the Science of Materials and a PhD in Science. He was first appointed at Northumbria University as a Senior Lecturer in Physics in 1985.

He has developed and taught on many undergraduate and postgraduate courses, supervised many final year MSc and PhD students and contributed to the administration of the courses, including Programme Leader for the MSc courses in Optoelectronic and Communications Engineering and Microelectronic and Communications Engineering.

He has also significantly contributed to a wide range of research activities largely based on the development of novel materials for application in thin film photovoltaic solar cell devices and was promoted to Reader in 1994 and more recently to Professor in 2010.

Robert has contributed to more than 150 research publications, including many invited review papers/book chapters in the photovoltaics area of research. He is a member of the Institute of Physics, the European Materials Research Society, PVNET, the EPSRC College, the Editorial Board of Vacuum and the ISSN Journal of Energy. He has refereed for a wide range of organisations including the US Department of Energy, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Estonian National Science Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, the EPSRC and the Royal Society.

Professor Miles view of his research interests:

Solar cells convert sunlight directly into electricity.  My research over the past 25 years has been to contribute to the development of solar cells that are efficient and stable and yet much cheaper to produce than the conventional solar cells. An exciting part of my research is the contact it gives me with the outside world and the variability of the work. This may include being invited to gives talks at overseas conferences, to write invited reviews of the field for books on solar energy or for International Journals, to review funding applications for the UK and European funding agencies or for the US Government in Washington, or to pass on my knowledge and skills to future generations of engineers and scientists who are interested in this area of work.

A list of  publications for Professor Miles can be found at Northumbria Research Link