Sir Alan Howard Cottrell, FRS^[1] (17 July 1919 – 15 February 2012) was an English metallurgist and physicist. He was also former Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government and vice-chancellor of Cambridge University 1977–1979.

Cottrell was educated at Moseley Grammar School and the University of Birmingham, where he gained a Bachelor of Science degree in 1939 and a PhD for research on welding in 1942.^[2]

Cottrell joined the staff as a lecturer at Birmingham, being made professor in 1949, and transforming the teaching of the department by emphasising modern concepts of solid state physics.^[3] In 1955 he moved to A.E.R.E. Harwell, to become Deputy Head of Metallurgy under Monty Finniston.^[3]

From 1958 to 1965 Cottrell was Goldsmiths' Professor of Metallurgy at Cambridge University, and a fellow of Christ's College. He later worked for the government in various capacities, ultimately as Chief Scientific Adviser from 1971 to 1974,^[4] before becoming Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, from 1973 to 1986,^[5] and Vice-Chancellor of the university in 1977–1979.^[6]

Cottrell died on 15 February 2012 after a brief illness.^[7]

• 1955 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society^[8]
• 1961 Hughes Medal^[9]
• 1962 Francis J. Clamer Medal^[6]
• 1963 Royal Society Bakerian Medal
• 1965 He was the first to be awarded the A. A. Griffith Medal and Prize.^{[citation needed]}
• 1967 James Alfred Ewing Medal.^[10]
• 1969 Fernand Holweck Medal and Prize
• 1971 He was knighted.^[5]
• 1973 Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) from the University of Bath.^[11]
• 1974 James Douglas Gold Medal^[12]
• 1982 Honorary doctorate from the University of Essex^[6]
• 1996 Copley Medal (the Royal Society's highest award)^[13][14]

He was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.^[15]

• Theoretical Structural Metallurgy (1948) (E Arnold; 2nd Revised edition (1 January 1955)) (ISBN 0713120436)
• Dislocations and Plastic Flows in Crystals (1953) (ISBN 978-0198512066)
• Superconductivity (1964) (Harwood Academic (Medical, Reference and Social Sc; n edition (December 1964)) (ISBN 0677000650)
• An Introduction to Metallurgy (1967) (ISBN 978-0901716934)
• Portrait of Nature : the world as seen by modern science (1975) (ISBN 978-0684143552)
• How Safe is Nuclear Energy? (1982) (Heinemann Educational Publishers (29 June 1981)) (ISBN 0435541757)
• Concepts in the Electron Theory of Alloys (1998) (ISBN 978-1861250759)

• Creep (deformation)