Brian Cantor

Cantor studied at Manchester Grammar School and Christ's College, Cambridge.

He has worked at universities including Sussex, Oxford, York, Washington State and Banaras Hindu University (BHU), and for companies including Alcan, Elsevier, General Electric and Rolls-Royce. He has advised organisations such as EPSRC, NASA, the EU and the Dutch, Spanish and German governments. He chaired international review panels for the Institute of Metal Research (IMR), Shenyang, China, the Department of Materials Engineering at the Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc), Bangalore, and the Institute of Innovative Materials, Wollongong University, Australia. He was a member of the Sainsbury review of UK science and innovation.^{[citation needed]}

He has chaired and been on the board of many companies and agencies, including the Kobe Institute, the UK Universities Pensions Forum,^[7] the White Rose University Consortium,^[8] Yorkshire Innovation, Leeds, York and Bradford Economic Partnerships,^[9] the Chambers of Commerce,^[10] the National Science Learning Centre, the Centre for Low Carbon Futures,^[11] Science City York,^[12] the Worldwide Universities Network,^[13] the UK College of Business and Computing, The Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission and the Science Museum Group.^[14] He founded the Begbroke Science Park at Oxford, the National Science Learning Centre, the Hull-York Medical School, and the World Technology Universities Network (WTUN), and led the £1bn Heslington East campus development at York.^[15]

Cantor was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to higher education.^[16]

Cantor's research has investigated the manufacture of materials and has contributed to fundamental scientific advances as well as improvements in many industrial products. He is well known for inventing the field of high entropy alloys, and discovering the so-called "Cantor alloys". He has supervised over 130 research students and postdocs, published over 300 papers and books, given over 100 invited talks in more than 15 countries, received almost 20,000 citations with an h-index of 59, and is on the list of ISI List of Most Cited Researchers.^[17] He was awarded the Rosenhain and Platinum^[18] Medals of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.

Cantor is an Honorary Professor at Shenyang, Zhejiang and Nanjing^[19] Universities, the National Institute of Metals in China and the Indian Institute of Sciences, an Honorary Member of the Indian Institute of Metals,^[20] a Member of Academia Europaea,^[21] and a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, the Institute of Physics, the Chartered Management Institute and the Royal Academy of Engineering.^[1] He is a member of the Scientific Council at the IMDEA Materials Institute in Madrid.

In 2024, Cantor was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.^[22]