| Citation | Distinguished for his contributions to structure elucidation and solid-state chemistry, especially of inorganic materials. As a graduate student he performed seminal work on non-stoichiometric fluorite and ceruim hydride. He was among the first in Europe to exploit (in 1974) the Rietveld neutron powder profile method of structure refinement and published in the Proceedings in 1975 papers that became turning points in the structural principles on non-stoichiometric block structures TiNb2O7, Ti2Nb19O29 and germanium-niobium oxides. Very recently his group has demonstrated how the structure on inorganic solids my be determined by 'ab initio' powder methods using either neutron beams (FeAsO4) or synchrotron radiation (alpha-CrPO4). He has in recent years, along with J.M. Thomas, done much to transform the structural chemistry of zeolites, significant achievements being the elucidation of the active site in La3+-exchanged zeolite Y cracking catalyst and the development of novel computational and graphics procedures for interpreting the behaviour of microporous catalysts and adsorbents. His use of analytical electron microscopy has greatly clarified the stoichiometry of the Bi, (Sr, Ba) Cu oxide superconductors and led to the discovery of a new type of MO10 cluster compound. Cheetham's work is characterized by deep insight and the inspired use of numerous techniques for the determination of the structure of materials not amenable to convertional single-crystal X-ray and spectroscopic approaches. |