carried out an NMR study of doped metals. In 1964, Mansfield returned to England to take up a place as a lecturer at Nottingham University where he could continue his studies in multiple-pulse NMR. He was successively appointed Senior Lecturer in 1968 and Reader in 1970. During this period his team developed the MRI equipment with the help of grants from the Medical Research Council. It was not until the 1970s with Paul Lauterbur's and Mansfield's developments that NMR could be used to produce images of the body. In 1979 Mansfield was appointed Professor of the Department of Physics until his retirement in 1994. 1962: Research Associate, Department of Physics, University of Illinois 1964: Lecturer, Department of Physics, University of Nottingham 1968: Senior Lecturer, Department of Physics, University of Nottingham 1970: Reader, Department of Physics, University of Nottingham 1972–73: Senior Visitor, Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg 1979: Professor, Department of Physics, University of Nottingham Mansfield is credited with inventing 'slice selection' for MRI - i.e. the method by which a localised axial slice of a subject can be selectively imaged, rather than the entire subject - and understanding how the radio signals from MRI can be mathematically analysed, making interpretation of the signals into a useful image a possibility. He is also credited with discovering how fast imaging could be possible by developing the MRI protocol called echo-planar imaging. Echo-planar imaging allows T2* weighted images to be collected many times faster than previously possible. It also has made functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) feasible. Whilst working at Nottingham University, Mansfield tested the first full body prototype, installed just before Christmas, 1978. Mansfield was so keen, that he volunteered to test it himself and produced the first scan of a live patient. The prototype machine is now an exhibit, in the Medical Section of the Science Museum. Awards and honours 1983 Gold Medal of the Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 1984 Joint award of the Royal Society Welcome Foundation Gold Medal and Prize. 1986 Elected Fellow of Queen Mary College (now Queen Mary University of London) 1987 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) 1987 Elected President of the Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 1988 Awarded Duddell Medal and Prize by the Institute of Physics 1988 Awarded Silvanus Thompson Medal by the British Institute of Radiology 1989 Antoine Béclère Medal from the International Society of Radiology and