Nicholas Spencer

Born in the UK, Prof. Nicholas D. Spencer studied at Cambridge University, obtaining his PhD in 1980 from the Department of Physical Chemistry in the area of gold and silver surface chemistry. Subsequently, he spent two years at the University of California, Berkeley, where he investigated the catalysis of ammonia synthesis by iron single crystals. From 1982 until 1993, Nicholas Spencer worked for W.R. Grace & Co., USA, in the areas of catalysis, high-temperature superconductors, surface analysis, and vibrational spectroscopy. He was also active as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland during this time.

Nicholas D. Spencer was elected Full Professor of Surface Science and Technology at the ETH Zurich in 1993. From 1996-1998 and from 2002-2006 he served as Chairman of the Department of Materials. From 2005-2007 he was the first Director of the ETH Materials Research Center. From 2007 to 2015 he was President of the ETH Research Commission.

The principal areas of his research are biocompatibility, tribology, and surface functionalization and analysis. Important surface-analytical approaches used in his group include x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, the surface-forces apparatus, atomic force microscopy, vibrational spectroscopy and several methods for the characterization of the liquid-solid interface. He is editor-in-chief of the journal "Tribology Letters", editor of an encyclopedia of physical chemistry and chemical physics, and a member of the editorial board of the journals "Tribology", "Tribology International", and "Lubrication Science". He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) and member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences.