Helen Gleeson

Helen Frances Gleeson OBE FInstP is a British physicist who specialises in soft matter and liquid crystals. She is Cavendish Professor and former Head of the School of Physics at the University of Leeds.

Education and early career Gleeson grew up in the North of England and attended a secondary school in Keighley. She studied A-Levels in Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry. She went on to study for a PhD which she was awarded in 1986 for investigations of the optical and electro-optical properties of chiral mesophases. She remained at Manchester, working as a senior scientist in the Wolfson Liquid Crystal industrially funded research centre. At the University of Manchester, Gleeson was made Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences in 2004. The position has been occupied by several eminent physicists, including William Henry Bragg. She is interested in novel experimental techniques to characterise liquid crystals, and in 2016 contributed a chapter on Raman spectroscopy to the book Liquid Crystals with Nano and Microparticles.

Her work concentrates on the experimental study of liquid crystals; in particular those with reduced symmetry. This can moderate the focus of the lenses, the same as changing putting on reading glasses. She has also invented liquid crystalline temperature recorders, where the liquid crystal contains a reactive monomer and an initiator that can crosslink. Working with Andre Geim, Gleeson produced the first graphene liquid crystal device. The devices contained transparent graphene electrodes, and had an exceptionally high contrast ratio. Gleeson went on to use graphene in the switchable liquid crystalline contact lenses. In 2015, Gleeson and her PhD student Devesh Mistry were awarded a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 industry fellowship to work with UltraVision on novel contact lenses that incorporate liquid crystals into intraocular lenses, particularly for people suffering from presbyopia.

In 2017 she launched a five-year £1 million partnership with Merck Group to investigate liquid crystals in optical innovations. In 2018 Gleeson and Mistry demonstrated a negative order parameter in a liquid crystal elastomer. This work marked a breakthrough for the auxetic liquid crystal community; offering the first synthetic molecular auxetic polymer. She looks to develop a flexible and cheap strip that acts like a Liquid crystal thermometer, but instead of monitoring changes in temperature changes colour when it detects a bacterial toxin or biomarker. She is involved with the Women's Engineering Society. She was awarded an Order of the British Empire in 2009, in recognition of her outreach efforts, and in particular her work to increase the number of girls studying physics.

Select publications

Awards and honours

2026 Institute of Physics Polymer Physics Group Founders' Prize 2018 Times Higher Education Outstanding Research Supervisor of the Year award 2013 British Liquid Crystal Society Gray Medal 2012 Société Française de Physique and Institute of Physics Holweck Medal and Prize 2009 Appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Birthday Honours, "for services to science" 2006 British Liquid Crystal Society Hilsum Medal