David Phillip Woodruff is an Emeritus Professor and leader of the Surfaces, Interfaces and Thin Films group in the Condensed Matter Physics department at the University of Warwick. He has been a full professor of physics at Warwick since 1987. Previously he was a lecturer and then senior lecturer since 1969. He has also undertaken multiple visiting professorial positions at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society between 1989-2011. Professor Woodruff has authored more than 520 published papers in archival refereed journals, and 2 books published by Cambridge University Press (3 editions of the second of these). A third book was recently published with CUP. He is a fellow of the Institute of Physics, and the Woodruff Thesis prize is named in his honour. He has been the winner of several prizes including the Nevill Mott Medal and Prize and the Max Born Medal and Prize. He was the president of International Union for Vacuum Science, Techniques and Applications from 1998-2001.