RMS Patrons

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, Ilora Finlay, has a background in medicine and is currently a Professor of Palliative Medicine at the Cardiff University School of Medicine and consultant at the Velindre Cancer Centre. Having grown up in Wales and studying and working in medicine all of her career, Baroness Ilora Gillian Finlay of Llandaff actively promotes bills and projects supporting health and Wales. She is currently Vice-President of Marie Curie and chaired an inquiry in 2011 in the prevention of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Baroness Brown of Cambridge, Julia King, has a background in engineering having first studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge and then followed with a PhD in Fracture Mechanics. Lady Brown also has previous involvement with the Royal Microscopical Society having served on Council whilst teaching at Cambridge. During her career, Lady Brown was the first Royal Academy of Engineering Senior Research Fellow and has held positions at Rolls Royce, Aston University and was previously the Chief Executive of the Institute of Physics.

Lady Brown said “I am delighted to have been asked to become a patron of the Royal Microscopical Society.  I started my career some 40 years ago as an academic metallurgist, spending many happy hours on a Cambridge Instruments SEM developing our understanding of the interaction of crack initiation and growth processes with microstructural features. I now chair the Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials.  I can’t help thinking how much deeper my insights would have been with some of today’s equipment! One of my ambitions for the Royce is that all our young materials practitioners – whether PhD students or in industrial roles - can access the world-class modelling and characterisation techniques, and advice that we can offer,  and hence the insights that will follow!

There is something addictive about being able to image materials at so many levels – the combination of insight and beauty is very powerful.”