Faculty Emeritus Profile

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Dr. Meakin holds a B.Sc 1st class (1955) and a Ph.D. (1957) in metallurgy from the University of Leeds, England. He has had extensive research and academic experience in the development and application of a wide range of materials. His early work was focussed on metals and alloys and ranged from failures in nuclear power stations to replacing the tie down bolts for William Penn on Philadelphia City Hall. In 1974 he was appointed Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Delaware. He also took a joint appointment as Associate Director of the Institute of Energy Conversion where until 1987 he was responsible for the development of polycrystalline thin-film solar cells. He was then appointed as Chairman of Mechanical Engineering a position he held for 6 years. Between 1960 and 1962 Dr. Meakin was a Senior Research Fellow at Kings College in the University of Durham, England. He was a Visiting Lecturer in Metallurgy, University of Pennsylvania, in 1966, a visiting Professor at the University of Delaware in 1967, at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, in 1983 and at the University of Auckland, New Zealand in 1997. He retired at the end of 1998 and is now Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Meakin was co-editor of an Academic Press series, “Current Topics in Photovoltaics” and continues to be active in that field holding a number of positions at the IEEE/EDS Photovoltaic Specialists Conference. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and has published over eighty research papers.