Rodney Vaughan Latham - born 16 November 1936 - is Emeritus Professor of Applied Physics at Aston University, where he had previously held the posts of Head of the Department of Electronic Engineering and Applied Physics, and subsequently Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University with special responsibility for research. His undergraduate and postgraduate education was at Queen Mary College, University of London, where he was awarded his BSc and PhD degrees in 1958 and 1963 respectively. Subsequently, in 1984, the University of London awarded him the degree of DSc for his contribution to the field of Surface Science. He is a Fellow of the UK's Institute of Physics and a past Fellow of the then Institution of Electrical Engineering. His research interest has centered on how metallic surfaces respond to high electric fields under vacuum conditions, with particular reference to the phenomenon of “cold” or field-induced electron emission. From a technological perspective, this translated, on the one hand ,into the development of new types of electron sources, and on the other, into improving the voltage hold-off performance of vacuum-insulated high voltage devices and systems, including being actively involved in the development of the LHC, or Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva in Switzerland. Professor Latham has written three specialist reference books on the subject and published over 100 scientific papers. He has been a member of the permanent scientific committees of the ISDEIV and EIDP international symposia, and was the IEEE Whitehead Memorial Lecturer at the 1988 EIDP conference in Ottawa. He has also held senior visiting appointments at the Ecole Superieure d'Electricité in Paris, the University of Geneva, and CERN.