The Institute has announced the 2010 winners of its Medal and Prizes. The premier award winners are listed below.

• Tom Bell Award – Professor John Nicholls FIMMM, Cranfield University. He established the National High Temperature Surface Engineering Centre and is a world expert on this area of materials science. His seminal work on coating systems to combat high temperature corrosion and wear has led to improved processes and coatings.

• Bessemer Gold Medal – Professor Mike Sellars FIMMM, University of Sheffield. Sellars' expertise lies in microstructure changes and how hot working effects the properties of materials. This research has led to several models of the rolling process which are remain in use today.

• Sir Andrew Bryan – Dr Chris Corti FIMMM. As a member of the IOM3 Local Affairs Board Corti has been an active supporter of the Young Persons' Lecture Competition as a way of promoting materials science to students. Corti has served on Council, the membership committee, the Professional Policy Board and The Member's Benevolent Trust. 

• Chapman Medal – Professor James Kirkpatrick, Institute of Pathology, for successfully bringing together academic research and clinical applications. He sits on a number of editorial advisory boards for biomedical journals and is an external reviewer for funding agencies such as the Medical Research Council and the EPSRC.

• Futers Gold Medal – Dr Christopher Fleming, Consultant for SGS. After 16 years working in hydrometallurgical research and development for Mintek in South Africa, he moved to Lakefield Research in Canada, rising from General Manager to CEO. He later gained responsibility for the company's worldwide metallurgy business.

• Gold Medal – Dr Derek Allen. Allen works for Alstom Power and is seconded to the Technology Strategy Board to advise on energy generation and supply. In this role he works to ensure new and sustainable energy materials receive industrial and governmental backing. His academic work focuses on high temperature and energy materials.

• Griffith Medal and Prize – Professor Robin Grimes FIMMM, Imperial College London. He balances his academic commitments of leading the EPSRC consortium on nuclear and Director of Imperial's Centre for Nuclear Engineering with media appearances in support of nuclear energy.

• Medal for Excellence – Andrew Watson FIMMM, Commercial Manger of the Mines Rescue Services. Watson secured the financial future of the Services by expanding its offerings into training and health and safety to mitigate the loss of revenue as UK mines closed. He has advocated an industry-recognised training scheme for the Service.

• Platinum Medal – Professor G Thompson OBE FIMMM, The University of Manchester, in recognition of outstanding service to the Institute and to its objectives or for other outstanding contributions to materials science, technology and industry nationally or internationally.

• Silver Medal – Dr Christopher Gourlay ProfGrad, Imperial College London. His interest lies in light casting and soldering alloys. This led to collaboration with a Japanese group to use synchrotron X-ray video microscopy. By noticing shear band-formation in iceberg floes and rocks in magma, he was able to establish links with researchers into soil-mechanics.

• Stokowiec Medal and Prize – John Martin MIMMM. In a career spanning almost 30 years, he has been involved in every metallurgical aspect of oil and gas exploration and production, ranging from operations, projects, field support and research and development.

• Swinburne Award – Professor Ton Peijs ProfGrad, Queen Mary University of London, for work on processing-structure-property relationships of polymers and their composites. Much of his work has been commercialised, such as recyclable self-reinforced polypropylene and commingled PLA/flax textile yarns for biodegradable composites.

Details of all other award winners can be found on the 2010 award winners page.