Timothy Leighton

Timothy Leighton
250x250px Timothy Leighton in 2014, portrait via the Royal Society
Born	Timothy Grant Leighton (1963-10-16) 16 October 1963 Blackburn, Lancashire
Fields	Acoustical oceanography Antimicrobial resistance Biomedical ultrasound Carbon capture and storage Climate change Decontamination De-mining conflict zones Health effects of ultrasound Hospital acquired infections Marine zoology Planetary probes and exploration Survivor retrieval Ultrasound Underwater acoustics
Institutions	Cavendish Laboratory University of Cambridge University of Southampton
Alma mater	University of Cambridge (BA, PhD)
Thesis	Image intensifier studies of sonoluminescence, with application to the safe use of medical ultrasound (1988)
Known for	The Acoustic Bubble
Notable awards	FRS (2014) FREng (2012) FInstP (2000) FIOA (1999) FASA (1998) Rayleigh Medal (2014) Helmholtz-Rayleigh Interdisciplinary Medal (2013) R W B Stephens Medal (2009) Paterson Medal (2009) ICA Early Career Medal (2004) Tyndall Medal (2002) A B Wood Medal (1994) Best New Product (2014) IChemE Award 'Water Management and Supply' (2012) Royal Society Brian Mercer Award (2011) Medical and Healthcare Award (2008) Medwin Award (2001)
Website www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/about/staff/tgl.page

Timothy Grant Leighton FREng FRS (born 16 October 1963) is the Professor of Ultrasonics and Underwater Acoustics at the University of Southampton.

Education

Leighton was educated at Heversham Grammar School, Cumbria and Magdalene College, Cambridge where he was awarded a Double First class Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences with Honours in Physics and Theoretical Physics in 1985. He stayed on to work in the Cavendish Laboratory where he was awarded a PhD in 1988 for Image intensifier studies of sonoluminescence with applications to medical ultrasonography.

Career

Following his PhD, Leighton was awarded Senior and Advanced Research Fellowships at Magdalene College, Cambridge and the EPSRC, and the Institut de Machines Hydrauliques et de Mecanique des Fluides at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland.

Leighton joined the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) at the University of Southampton in 1992 as a Lecturer in Underwater Acoustics, and completed the monograph The Acoustic Bubble in the same year. He was awarded a Personal Chair at the age of 35 and has authored over 400 publications.

Research

Leighton's research investigates:

... the way sound travels through liquids (and liquid-like materials, such as human tissues, and the atmosphere of Venus). Consequently his research covers: Acoustical Oceanography (how we can measure ocean properties by sound); Biomedical Ultrasonics (how to ensure ultrasound does not change tissue when it should not – e.g. during foetal scanning; and ensuring that it does change tissue in a controlled way when it should – e.g. during tumour therapy); Marine Zoological Acoustics (how sea creatures use and respond to sound); Sonochemistry (how to produce chemical reactions in liquid using ultrasound). He likes to cover a project from the fundamental science through to application in industry, hospitals, or at sea.

Although elements of Leighton's research have been funded by the Royal Society, the US Dept of Energy, the Science and Technology Research Council, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), he has self-funded research ideas that cannot attract a sponsor by raising funds through inventions.

Community

Leighton is serving or has served on advisory bodies including:

• Founding Chair, Network for Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Prevention (NAMRIP), Universities Strategic Research Group
• Government of the United Kingdom's Working Group of the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies Sub Group
• Scientific Expert Group of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection
• Defence Scientific Advisory Council (DSAC), Ministry of Defence (MoD)
• World Federation of Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology Safety Work Group
• Founding Chair, Health Effects of Ultrasound in Air (HEFUA)
• Ministry of Defence Brains Trust, under the MoD Science and Technology Rapid Assistance to Operations (STRATOS) programme
• Maritime Mine Countermeasures Workgroup, DSAC, MoD
• Scoping Group on Ultrasound and Infrasound Safety, Health Protection Agency
• Work Group 22 of Accredited Standards Committee S1 of Acoustical Society of America

Inventions

Medical, environmental and humanitarian inventions

From fundamental science publications, Leighton has invented systems for detecting bone disease (including osteoporosis). He invented radar for the detection of buried explosives, hidden bugging devices, and for the location of buried catastrophe victims (in avalanches, mudslides, collapsed buildings etc.). He invented the world’s only sonar system capable of detecting objects in bubbly water (key, for example, to protecting services, cargo and aid shipping in conflict zones). Mine detection is often an ongoing problem long after conflict has reduced and civilians return to former conflict zones. He invented technology used by oil and gas companies to monitor for gas leaks from undersea pipelines. from pipelines and from methane seeps, by their acoustic emissions He invented systems to assess leakage from Carbon Capture and Storage Facilities, and to assess the amount of methane in the seabed, and leaking from it (in the seabed, there is probably more carbon trapped in methane than there is in all other forms of conventional fossil fuel, yet as a greenhouse gas methane is 20 times more potent per molecule than carbon dioxide, so assessing how much is in the seabed, and how much leaks into the atmosphere, is a key task). He made measurements of key parameters in the transfer of atmospheric gas between atmosphere and ocean. This is important for climate change modelling, because over 1000 million tonnes of atmospheric carbon transfers each year between atmosphere and ocean.(Key collaborator: Paul White).

He invented devices for monitoring the efficiency of kidney stone therapy, an invention that won the 2008 ‘Medical & Healthcare’ award from ‘The Engineer’ (key collaborator: Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust). His work enabled the manufacture of needle-free injectors for migraine sufferers (over 1 million sold). He assisted the Institute of Cancer Research with technology for tumour therapy monitoring (2010). He was a co-author of the World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology guidelines for foetal ultrasonic scanning. He identified the mass exposure of the public to ultrasound in public spaces, and placed this in the context of inadequate current guidelines for public protection, and inadequate standards for instrumentation and procedures for measuring such exposures and the human response to them. He advises the Health Protection Agency on the safety of ultrasound and provides scientific advice to the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.

StarStream

File:Latest StarStream product - Ultrawave Ltd (2014 Septmeber).png

StarStream device in 2014

StarStream cleaning technology, which cleans whilst saving up to 80% water and electricity costs, with no additives so that the water can more easily be returned to drinking water, won the Institute of Chemical Engineering Award for “Water Management and Supply”; the Royal Society Brian Mercer Award for Innovation, and the S-lab Product of the Year 2014. Multidisciplinary teams have shown that StarStream is effective at cleaning bone prior to transplant, removing bacterial biofilms, cleaning skin and decontaminating surgical steel of CJD prion.

Other inventions

By predicting the soundscapes of other worlds and how these could best be exploited using acoustic devices, Leighton developed devices for planetaria to use when teaching about other worlds, and showed how careful calculation was needed to avoid mistakes when using acoustic sensors on other worlds He identified key uses of sound by whales and dolphins. He invented sensors for assist safety procedures in the world’s most powerful pulsed spallation neutron source ($1.3 billion) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US.

Outreach

Leighton has contributed to outreach and the encouragement of young men and women to engage, and possibly follow careers in, science and engineering, with school visits, science fairs, and appearances on TV and radio.

Awards and honours

Leighton has been awarded the following medals and distinctions:

Medals

• the 2014 Rayleigh Medal of the Institute of Acoustics
• the 2013 Helmholtz-Rayleigh Interdisciplinary Silver Medal of the Acoustical Society of America
• the 2009 R W B Stephens Medal of the Institute of Acoustics
• the 2006 Paterson Medal of the Institute of Physics
• the inaugural 2004 Early Career Medal and Award of the International Commission for Acoustics
• the 2002 Tyndall Medal of the Institute of Acoustics
• the 1994 A. B. Wood Medal of the Institute of Acoustics

The citation of the 2006 Paterson Medal of the Institute of Physics states that:

Timothy Leighton’s contribution is outstanding in both breadth and depth. His is an acknowledged world leader in four fields relating to acoustics in liquids: biomedical ultrasonics, acoustical oceanography, cavitation and industrial ultrasonics. He has delivered over 70 pioneering advances, from devices now used in hospitals to the world's first count of bubbles in the surf zone (crucial to our understanding of atmosphere-ocean gas flux, coastal erosion and the optimisation of military sonar). Behind these advances lies rigorous physics.

Awards

• The 2014 'Best new product of the year' award for StarStream
• the 2012 Institute of Chemical Engineering Award for Water Management and Supply
• the 2011 Royal Society Brian Mercer Award for Innovation
• the 2008 ‘Medical & Healthcare’ award from ‘The Engineer’
• the inaugural 2001 International Medwin Prize for Acoustical Oceanography from the Acoustical Society of America

Fellowships

Leighton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2014. His nomination reads:

Timothy Leighton is distinguished for his research on the acoustical physics of bubbles, especially their nonlinear behaviour; for his inventions and discoveries including bubble measurements in the surf zone, pipelines and methane seeps; for shock wave lithotripsy monitoring, disease detection in cancellous bone and needle free injection; for sonar systems that overcome bubble masking and numerous industrial applications. His seminal monograph The Acoustic Bubble has become the primary reference on bubble physical acoustics

Leighton was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2012 for his services to Engineering and society.

He was also awarded Fellowship of the Institute of Physics (FInstP) in 2000, Fellowship of Institute of Acoustics in 1999, Fellowship of the Acoustical Society of America in 1998, and Fellowship of the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1988.