My profession is a scientist, especially concerning solid state physics
with specialisation in semiconductor science & technology,
and the structures & properties of lattice defects in semiconductors and metals.
My parents were William (Bill) Henry and Ellen (Nellie) Matilda Palmer
of Totton, Hampshire, who, in 1944 / 1945, moved to Falmouth in Cornwall,
where they set up a Guest House that florished very well.
My secondary education was in Cornwall at Falmouth Grammar School.
I then obtained my BA and MA Degrees in Natural Sciences
at the University of Cambridge (Downing College)
and subsequently my PhD Degree in Physics
at the University of Reading in April 1962.
After our marriage in May 1962, I and my wife, Ann (Ann Patricia), lived in Paris for several years,
during which time I worked as a physic researcher at the
Ecole Normale Supérieure in its Physics Laboratory in the Rue Lhomond
(the laboratory where Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radium in 1898),
in the Latin Quarter 5 in the east of Paris.
My subsequent life career was as a physics academic,
becoming a Senior Lecturer and Researcher,
at the University of Sussex in Brighton, East Susssex, UK.
Ann and I had two children,
Helen Ann, born in 1973, and Robert Derek, born in 1977,
and before and when they were both in school education,
Ann worked as a school teacher, mainly in Rottingean Primary School.
At the University of Sussex I gave lecture courses on many areas
of physics, electronics and materials science, including
electromagnetism, solid-sate physics, semiconductors devices, nuclear physics and stregths of materials,
and undertook experimental research concerning semiconductors and metals.
I retired from the Universituy of Sussex in 1999,
and Ann and I then moved to West Devon, near Dartmoor,
first to Lydford amd then to Gulworthy near Tavistock.
During 2004 to 2017 I was an Honorary University Fellow
at the University of Exeter in Devon, UK,
associated there with the solid-state research in the School of Physics.
In addition to my continuing deep interest in physics,
I am interested in archaeology, history and architecture.
I enjoy the open countryside & tuneful classical & light music,
and I am a strong fan of BBC Radio 4
(except of its "comedy" programmes !)
Copyright D.W.Palmer, 2022, 2023
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Derek W Palmer, Deran House, Gulworthy, Tavistock, Devon PL19-8JA, UK
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