Engineering honours for staff and alumni

Imperial academics and alumni received a record haul of honours from a prestigious engineering academy this month.

The Royal Academy of Engineering announced the election of 60 new Fellows at its annual general meeting on 22 July. The Fellows include some of the UK's most accomplished engineers from academia and business. This now takes the number of Imperial Fellows to 83.

Fellowships for Imperial staff

Among this year’s cohort were Professors Jeff Magee, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Imperial; Molly Stevens, Departments of Materials  and Bioengineering and the Institute of Biomedical Engineering; Robin Grimes, Department of Materials; Jianguo Lin, Department of Mechanical Engineering; Washington Ochieng, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Stratos Pistikopoulos, Department of Chemical Engineering.

Sir Keith O’Nions, President & Rector of Imperial, said: “Our Faculty of Engineering is a world beater in terms of the quality, depth and breadth of research and teaching being carried out. It is absolutely fantastic news that such a large group of Imperial academics have been recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering. All six are leaders in their field and thoroughly deserve recognition for their outstanding contribution to engineering.”

Imperial alumni honoured

Five Imperial alumni were also honoured including: Naomi Climer, President of Sony Media Cloud Services and Deputy President, IET (Chemistry, 1986); Dr Richard Greaves, Group Chief Technology Officer, Meggitt plc and Member of the Board of Directors, SAE International (PhD Life Sciences, 1987); Professor Lin Li, Director of Research and Deputy Head, School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, The University of Manchester (PhD Mechanical Engineering, 1988); Dr Andrew Rickman, Founder and Chairman of the Rockley Group (Mechanical Engineering; 1982) and Dr Andrew Shields, Assistant Managing Director, Toshiba Research Europe (Physics, 1986, PhD 1990).

Professor Jeff Magee

Jeff Magee is Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Imperial and Professor of Computing. He is an authority on the software engineering of large and complex computer systems. His research has been used commercially by large corporations including Philips in consumer television products.

Professor Jeff Magee

He has also collaborated with BP, BT, Fujitsu and Barclays Capital. Professor Magee is the co-author of a standard reference work on concurrent programming, which is now in its second edition and has sold more than 15,000 copies.

Professor Molly Stevens

Molly Stevens is a Professor of Biomedical Materials and Regenerative Medicine, and Research Director for Biomedical Material Sciences in the Departments of Materials and Bioengineering and the Institute for Biomedical Engineering at Imperial.  Professor Stevens’ research focuses on using stem cells for the regeneration of tissue in the body.

Professor Molly Stevens

Her other work includes developing microscopic scaffolds that enable damaged bone to mend more effectively and creating ultrasensitive devices for detecting viruses such as HIV in their earliest stages. Her research has received many awards including the 2012 EU40 award for best materials scientist in Europe under the age of 40.

Professor Robin Grimes

Professor Grimes is currently the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for ensuring that foreign policy is informed by the best available science. He also provides leadership for the science, engineering and innovation agenda of the organisation.

Professor Robin Grimes

Robin is an eminent nuclear engineer, the Professor of Materials Physics in the Department of Materials where he was the founding head of the Imperial Centre for Nuclear Engineering and first director of the Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre in Nuclear Engineering.

Professor Washington Yotto Ochieng

Professor Ochieng is the Head of the Centre for Transport Studies and Chair in Positioning and Navigation Systems in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial. He is an internationally renowned expert in the design of positioning and navigation systems for use on land, sea and in the air.

Professor Washington Yotto Ochieng

Professor Ochieng has worked in commercial satellite building and related companies as well as in academia, and has carried out extensive and award winning research on integrating satellite and earthbound systems so that they are more effective positioning and navigation tools. Professor Ochieng’s work has applications in a wide variety of areas including air traffic management systems and intelligent traffic control systems, which are increasingly needed to regulate congested streets.

Professor Efstratios (Stratos) Pistikopoulos

Professor Pistikopoulos was the Director of the Centre for Process Systems Engineering and is Professor of Chemical Engineering at the College. He has pioneered the development of theory, algorithms and computational tools that enable process engineers to analyse and improve their process manufacturing in terms of economics, environmental impact, energy efficiency and operability.

Professor Stratos Pistikopoulos

These tools are also being used by engineers to improve the performance of clean energy systems currently being developed and intelligent drug delivery systems for personalized healthcare. Professor Pistikopoulos’ work was recognized in 2012 with the Computing in Chemical Engineering Award of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and has led to the establishment of two spinout companies, Process Systems Enterprise Ltd (PSE) and Parametric Optimization Solutions Ltd (ParOS).

Professor Jianguo Lin

Jianguo Lin is a Professor in the Mechanics of Materials and Head of Mechanics of Materials Division in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial. He is a leading expert on the modelling of materials for use in the manufacturing industry and he has developed a method for predicting different types of metal failure mechanisms.

Professor Jianguo Lin

Professor Lin’s work has widespread applications such as the forming of lightweight complex panel shapes for automotive, aerospace and other transportation industries.