Richard Phillips
Emeritus Professor of Physics
University of Cambridge
Biography
Richard Phillips is an Emeritus Professor of Physics in the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge.
His experimental research in the physics of semiconductors extended over nearly fifty years, and took him to a wide range of laboratories and universities. As well as Cambridge, these included Exeter in the UK, EPFL and ETH in Switzerland, LMU in Munich, and the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Physics in Stuttgart.
From 2014, until retirement in 2023, he led Cambridge University’s academic contribution to the design development for the new Cavendish Laboratory, which provided the ideal opportunity to draw upon his previous experience in a constructive way. He is a strong advocate of very close involvement of the final user in design, and in developing technical and aesthetic specifications; the resulting Ray Dolby Centre is a direct manifestation of this approach.
Speaker in
30-June-2026 Block 1 8:05AM