Michael Woolfson Michael Woolfson Michael Mark Woolfson (born 9 January 1927) is a British physicist and planetary scientist. His research interests lie in the fields of x-ray crystallography, biophysics and the formation of stars and planets. He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford and received his PhD from UMIST. He was a research assistant at UMIST 1950-52 and at Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 1952-54. He was an ICI Fellow, University of Cambridge, 1954-55. At UMIST he was a lecturer, 1955–61, and a Reader, 1961-65. He was Professor of Theoretical Physics, 1965-94 University of York and head of the Department of Physics,
Cavendish Laboratory new chemistry building with the Department of Chemistry (led by Lord Todd) in Lensfield Road: both chemistry departments merged in the 1980s. In World War II the laboratory carried out research for the MAUD Committee, part of the British Tube Alloys project of research into the atomic bomb. Researchers included Nicholas Kemmer, Alan Nunn May, Anthony French, Samuel Curran and the French scientists including Lew Kowarski and Hans von Halban. Several transferred to Canada in 1943; the Montreal Laboratory and some later to the Chalk River Laboratories. The production of plutonium and neptunium by bombarding uranium-238 with neutrons was predicted