Alan Lindsay Greer (publishing as A. Lindsay Greer) is a British materials scientist and professor at the University of Cambridge, known for research on metallic glasses, crystal nucleation and microstructural kinetics. He served as Head of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy from 2006 to 2013 and as Head of the School of the Physical Sciences from 2016 to 2019. Since 2024 he has been President of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.
Greer studied at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge, where he earned the MA and PhD degrees. His doctoral research was supervised by John Leake. He subsequently held postdoctoral and faculty appointments at Harvard University before returning to Cambridge.
At Cambridge, GreerâÂÂs roles have included Head of the Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy (2006âÂÂ2013) and Head of the School of the Physical Sciences (2016âÂÂ2019). As Head of the School of the Physical Sciences (2016âÂÂ2019), Greer oversaw several Cambridge departments, including Physics, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, and Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. He initiated the Cambridge Nuclear Energy Centre and served as its inaugural chair. He is also an editor of Philosophical Magazine.
GreerâÂÂs research focuses on metallic materials far from equilibrium, including metallic glasses, thin-film multilayers and kinetic analysis of phase transformations. His publications include widely cited overviews of metallic glasses in Science (1995) and Materials Today (2009). His work has been covered in independent science media, including Physics World, which reported on strain-hardening metallic glasses in 2020.
GreerâÂÂs awards and honours include: