Olwyn Byron


Olwyn Byron is a British physicist who is Professor of Biophysics at the University of Glasgow and Chair of the British Biophysical Society. She is a member of the Physics of Life UK Network steering group who were awarded the 2020 Institute of Physics Rosalind Franklin Medal and Prize.

Education

Byron was an undergraduate student at Durham University. She moved to the University of Aberdeen as a graduate student, where she earned a master's degree in medical physics. Byron moved to the University of Nottingham, where her doctoral research considered structure-property investigations into B72.3.

Research and career

In 1992, Byron joined the faculty at the University of Leicester, where she worked in applied bimolecular technology. She joined the University of Glasgow in 1997 and was promoted to Professor in 2016.
Byron studies the solution behaviour of macromolecules and complexes. She is interested in the solution shape of molecules and the strength of the complexes that they form. She serves on the steering group of the Physics of Life network, a team of biologists and physicists who look to develop a comprehensive understanding of biological processes across multiple length scales, from molecules to systems. Byron was elected Chair of the British Biophysical Society in 2018.

Awards and honours

Selected publications

  • Rocco. M., Brookes, E. and Byron, O US-SOMO: methods for the construction and hydration of macromolecular hydrodynamic models. Encyclopaedic of Biophysics, G. C. K. Roberts and A. Watts eds., Springer.