The top engineers will be formally admitted to the academy during its annual general meeting in London today. The newly-elected members will join a fellowship of 1,500 world leaders from industry and academia.
New entrants include Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, the company behind much-publicised AI program AlphaGo, and Pavel Matousek, whose work led to liquid security scanners in over 75 airports worldwide.
Others on the diverse list include Andrew Davison, professor of robot vision and director of the Dyson Robotics Laboratory at Imperial College London, and Terry Wilkins, professor of nanomanufacturing innovation at the University of Leeds.
New fellow Eleanor Stride, professor of engineering science at the University of Oxford, told Professional Engineering it was an honour after RAEng had “a transformative effect” on her early career. Professor Stride, who does ground-breaking work on drug delivery by micro- and nano-encapsulation, said she owed a “huge amount” to the academy for supporting her early research.
“I hope that through [the fellowship] I can support the next generation of new engineers,” she said to PE. “I think one of the most important things we can do to encourage future engineers is to advertise the huge breadth of applications with which engineers are involved and the positive impact that they have.”
The co-designer of the low-cost Raspberry Pi microcomputer Eben Upton told PE his fellowship is a “massive honour”. Dr Upton, CEO of the company’s trading wing, was also one of the Pi team recently honoured with the academy’s MacRobert Award for engineering innovation.
He called the fellowship “an opportunity to get more closely involved in the academy's work around educational outreach and positioning engineering both as a desirable career choice for young people, and as a key driver of economic growth for the UK during a period of considerable change.”
He told PE he is “looking forward to spending a lot more time talking to civil engineers, chemical engineers, mechanical engineers and the rest,” and he hopes to extend his company’s outreach work.
Other new fellows include Caroline Hargrove, technical director of McLaren Applied Technologies, who told PE the fellowship “will open thought leadership opportunities and cross fertilisation with an extended community of engineers”.
The academy formed the fellowship of a group of 130 initial engineers in 1976, charged with advancing and promoting excellence in engineering. President Dame Ann Rowling said the new members “represent the very best of UK engineering.”
“From technology giants to our universities’ finest minds, our new fellows demonstrate how engineering is tackling some of the biggest challenges facing the world,” she said. “I look forward to working with them as we continue to make the UK a leading nation for engineering innovation and businesses.”
New Fellows 2017:
· Professor Julian Allwood - Professor of Engineering and the Environment, University of Cambridge
· Dr Don Arnone - Chief Executive Officer, TeraView Ltd
· Christopher Barkley - Former Group Director, Engineering & Technology, Rolls-Royce plc
· Dr Anthony Batchelor - Executive Chairman, GeoScience Ltd; Chairman, Camborne School of Mines Trust
· Dr Michael Begg - Group Managing Director, Tesla Engineering Ltd (Storrington EquityCo Ltd)
· Gordon Birrell - Chief Operating Officer, Production, Transformation and Carbon, BP plc
· Dr Keith Bowers - Head of Tunnels, London Underground
· Dr Andrew Carter - Chief Technology Officer, Oclaro Inc
· Joan Cordiner - Technical and Change Manager, GBB Site; Global Risk Manager, Syngenta
· Andrew Cowell - Managing Director, Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains Ltd
· Professor David Cumming FRSE - Head, School of Engineering, and Chair, Electronic Systems, University of Glasgow
· Mark Cutifani - Group CEO, Anglo American plc
· Professor Michael Davies - Jeffrey Hamilton Collins Chair in Signal and Image Processing, University of Edinburgh
· Professor Andrew Davison - Professor of Robot Vision, Department of Computing, and Director, Dyson Robotics Laboratory, Imperial College London
· Professor Mischa Dohler - Chair Professor in Wireless Communications, and Director, Centre for Telecommunications Research, King’s College London
· Professor Alicia El Haj - Director, Institute of Science and Technology in Medicine, Keele University
· Air Vice-Marshal Graham Peter Farnell CB OBE - General Manager, NATO Eurofighter Tornado Management Agency (NETMA)
· Mark Garrett - Chief Operating Officer and Executive Board Member, Ricardo plc
· Dr Caroline Hargrove - Technical Director, McLaren Applied Technologies
· Dr Demis Hassabis - Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, DeepMind
· Eric Hawthorn - Managing Director, Radio Design Ltd
· Professor Morgan Heikal - Head of the Centre for Automotive Engineering, University of Brighton
· Keith Howells - Group Chairman, Mott MacDonald Group Ltd
· Rachel Hurst - Chief Operating Officer, Domino Printing Sciences plc
· Professor Dr Uwe Krueger - Chief Executive Officer, WS Atkins plc
· Professor Juergen Maier - Chief Executive, Siemens UK & Ireland
· Dr Graeme Malcolm OBE FRSE - Chief Executive Officer, M Squared Lasers Ltd
· Professor Ursula Martin CBE FRSE - Professor of Computer Science, University of Oxford
· Dr Pavel Matousek - Chief Scientific Officer, Cobalt Light Systems; Science and Technology Facilities Council Senior Fellow, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
· Geoff McFarland - Group Head of Engineering, Renishaw
· Dr Philip O’Donovan - Angel investor
· Professor Sir Timothy O’Shea FRSE - Principal and Vice-Chancellor, University of Edinburgh
· Dr Andrew Palmer CMG - Chief Executive Officer, Aston Martin Lagonda
· Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff CBE FRS - Research Professor in Chemistry, University of Nottingham
· Professor Simon Pollard - Pro-Vice-Chancellor, School of Water, Energy and Environment, Cranfield University
· Professor Richard Prager - Professor of Engineering, University of Cambridge
· Professor Tony Purnell - Head of Technology, British Cycling; Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor, University of Cambridge
· Professor Graham Reed - Professor of Silicon Photonics, University of Southampton
· Professor Roger Reed - Professor of Engineering Science and Materials, University of Oxford
· Ian Ritchey - Group Chief Engineer, Rolls-Royce plc
· Professor Spencer Sherwin - McLaren Racing/Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair and Professor of Computational Fluid Mechanics, Department of Aeronautics, Imperial College London
· Dr Dame Angela Strank DBE - Head of Downstream Technology and BP Chief Scientist, BP plc
· Professor Eleanor Stride - Professor of Engineering Science, University of Oxford
· Professor Anne Trefethen - Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of Oxford
· Dr Eben Upton CBE - Chief Executive Officer, Raspberry Pi (Trading)
· Professor Paul Watson - Professor of Computer Science, Newcastle University
· Professor Terry Wilkins - Professor of Nanomanufacturing Innovation, University of Leeds
· Dr Sarah Williamson - Structural Engineering Leader and Technical Director, Laing O'Rourke
· Professor Alexandre Yakovlev - Professor of Computer System Design, Newcastle University
· Professor Antoni Ziolkowski FRSE - Professor of Petroleum Geoscience, University of Edinburgh
International Fellows:
· Professor John Hennessy - Director of Knight-Hennessy Scholar’s Program, Stanford University
· Chad Holliday – Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell Plc
Honorary Fellow:
· David Gammon – CEO and founder, Rockspring