Cathie Rae

Education Rae became interested in science when accompanying her father on field work visits to sub-Saharan Africa and the space race between the US and USSR. This motivated her application to University, where Rae was one of the first female students to study in St Catherine's College, Oxford (as it was previously an all-male college) and was a college scholar. In 1974, she completed her degree and received a First in Metallurgy and the Science of Materials. on grain boundary migration supervised by David A Smith and Peter Hazeldine. In 2009, Rae was awarded an Industrial Fellowship hosted by Rolls-Royce plc and provided her with direct view of the workings of the company.

Professional service In 2014, Rae was on the Programme Committee for EuroSuperalloys 2014, a major conference in superalloys research. Rae has served on the Royal Society Committee for Science, Industry and Translation. Rae is also serves as a member of the "Structure and Properties of Materials Committee" for the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. In 2018 she led the Rolls-Royce UTC's presentation of "Engineering Atoms" at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition.

Public service In the 2021 United Kingdom local elections Rae was elected as a Labour Party councilor for Cambridgeshire County Council, representing the Castle ward in Cambridge. Previously, in 2018 Rae had unsuccessfully run for councillor for the Fen Ditton and Fulbourn Ward of South Cambridgeshire District Council as a Labour Party Councillor.

Selected Academic Publications

Rae, Catherine MF, and Roger C. Reed. "The precipitation of topologically close-packed phases in rhenium-containing superalloys." Acta materialia 49.19 (2001): 4113-4125. Freund, Lisa P., et al. "Segregation assisted microtwinning during creep of a polycrystalline L12-hardened Co-base superalloy." Acta Materialia 123 (2017): 295-304. Bensch, Matthias, et al. "Influence of oxidation on near-surface γ′ fraction and resulting creep behaviour of single crystal Ni-base superalloy M247LC SX." Materials Science and Engineering: A 577 (2013): 179-188. Pang, Hon Tong, et al. "Solution heat treatment optimization of fourth-generation single-crystal nickel-base superalloys." Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A 43.9 (2012): 3264-3282.