text: Knowles was educated at Toller Porcorum primary school, Beaminster School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, graduating from the university in 1988, with triple first class honours in natural sciences (taking Materials Science and Metallurgy in Part II). He then went on to complete a PhD in 1991 - on the topic of the fatigue and fracture behaviour of aluminium-lithium based composites - under the supervision of Dr Julia King (now Baroness Brown of Cambridge).