Lewis Elton
Lewis Richard Benjamin Elton was a German-born British physicist and researcher into education, specialising in higher education.
Early life
Born in Tübingen to the scholars Victor Ehrenberg and Eva Dorothea Sommer, Ehrenberg moved with his family to Prague in 1929, and from there to England in February 1939, to escape Nazi persecution of the Jews. Ehrenberg naturalised as a British subject and changed his name by deed poll in June 1947. He was educated at Rydal School in Colwyn Bay, and thereafter at Christ's College, Cambridge, the Regent Street Polytechnic, London, and University College London. It was from the latter institution that he was awarded his PhD, in 1950.Career
He was Professor of Physics at Battersea College of Technology from 1964 until 1970. The College completed its transformation into the University of Surrey in 1970. He founded the Institute of Educational Technology in 1967, the first of its kind. He was somewhat of a pioneer and innovator in the professional development of university teachers and became Professor of Higher Education in 1970, a post he held until 1988. The Institute became internationally renowned and his philosophy is one that has been adopted by many universities around the world.In 1994 he was appointed Professor of Higher Education at University College London, where he founded the Higher Education Research and Development Unit. He became an honorary professor there in 2003. He was appointed Visiting Professor of Higher Education at Manchester University in August 2005.
He was a Fellow of the American Institute of Physics and a Fellow of the Society for Research into Higher Education. He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement award at the 2005 Times Higher Awards, at which Baroness Kennedy said "there is a polymath quality to this man that points to someone interested in educating the whole person."