Audrey Stuckes | |
|---|---|
Stuckes at the University of Salford in 1981 | |
| Born | Audrey Doris Stuckes 15 September 1923 Bristol, England |
| Died | 26 September 2006 (aged 83) |
| Resting place | Altrincham Crematorium (ashes interred) |
| Education | Colston's Girls' School, Montpelier, Bristol |
| Alma mater | Newnham College, University of Cambridge (1950: MA (Cantab), 1969: PhD) |
| Occupations |
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| Awards | Pfeiffer scholarship (1942) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Thermal and electrical conductivity |
| Institutions | |
Audrey Doris Jones CPhys FInstP (née Stuckes /stuːks/ ; 15 September 1923 – 26 September 2006) was an English material scientist and a senior lecturer in the department of applied acoustics at the University of Salford. She made important contributions to the theory of the Johnsen–Rahbek effect, the electrical and thermal conductivity of semiconductors, and the thermal resistance of building insulation. She was the only daughter of Frederick Stuckes, the general manager of a shipbroking firm, and was educated at Colston's Girls' School in Bristol. In 1942, she won a scholarship to study the Natural Science Tripos at Newnham College in the University of Cambridge.
Stuckes graduated in 1946 with a BA degree and joined Metropolitan-Vickers, Trafford, as a graduate trainee in the research department. From 1953, she published a series of papers on the thermal and electrical conductivity of semiconductors. She proved the existence of the Johnsen‑Rahbek effect and proposed an electric circuit model to explain the data. In December 1962, she was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, and in the following year, she left Metropolitan-Vickers to work as a lecturer in the department of pure and applied physics at the Royal College of Advanced Technology, Salford, that became the University of Salford in 1967.
In 1975, Stuckes, together with John Edwin Parrott, published a well-received textbook that reviewed the theory and experimental data on thermal conductivity in solids and semiconductors. By 1979, she was a senior lecturer in the department of applied acoustics at Salford, and in the following year, she was in charge of the department's heat laboratory. The laboratory was supported by grants from, amongst others, the Science and Engineering Research Council and the Building Research Establishment. These grants funded studies to investigate the efficiency of insulating materials. She led a team to obtain experimental data that would allow builders to calculate a standard level of insulation. In 1982, she presented a television programme for the Open University that demonstrated the usefulness of these simple models of thermal conduction. She retired from the university in September 1988 and died after a long illness at a nursing home in Urmston, Trafford.