Derek Vonberg (1921–2015) was a British
electrical engineer
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
,
radio astronomer, and medical research scientist.
[CAVMAG - News from the ]Cavendish Laboratory
The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...
, August 2015, Page 20
Vonberg studied at
Imperial College
Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a cultural district in South Kensington that included museums ...
. In 1942, he worked at the
Telecommunications Research Establishment
The Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) was the main United Kingdom research and development organisation for radio navigation, radar, infra-red detection for heat seeking missiles, and related work for the Royal Air Force (RAF) ...
(TRE) in
Malvern, on the development of
RADAR
Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...
. After the war, he joined the
Cavendish Laboratory
The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...
in 1945, where he worked with
Martin Ryle
Sir Martin Ryle (27 September 1918 – 14 October 1984) was an English radio astronomer who developed revolutionary radio telescope systems (see e.g. aperture synthesis) and used them for accurate location and imaging of weak radio sourc ...
.
In the late 1940s, Vonberg joined the
Cyclotron
A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Januar ...
Group at
Hammersmith Hospital
Hammersmith Hospital, formerly the Military Orthopaedic Hospital, and later the Special Surgical Hospital, is a major teaching hospital in White City, London, White City, West London. It is part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in the ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vonberg, Derek
1921 births
2015 deaths
Radio astronomers
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
20th-century British astronomers