Vice-Chancellor elected Fellow of RAE
Tue, 22 Sep 2015 06:00:00 BST
Professor Bob Cryan CBE is one of just 50 Fellows elected annually by the Royal Academy of Engineering
THE Vice-Chancellor of the University of Huddersfield, Professor Bob Cryan CBE, has been elected a member of the most exclusive fellowship in the engineering profession.
Every year, the Royal Academy of Engineering creates some 50 new Fellows, who are nominated by their peers and then elected to join a body that currently includes innovators such as inventor Sir James Dyson and Apple chief designer Sir Jonathan Ive.
Professor Cryan – an electrical engineer who is the author of a substantial body of scientific articles on his areas of expertise – is one of the 2015 cohort. As a result, he adds the title Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) to his sequence of degrees and distinctions, which include two first class honours degrees and two doctorates.
The Royal Academy of Engineering was created in the 1970s to champion excellence in the profession and has had the continued backing of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, who is its Senior Fellow and a keen supporter of innovation of engineering since his wartime career in the Royal Navy.
Among the earliest Fellows of the Academy were jet engine developer Sir Frank Whittle, radar pioneer Sir George MacFarlane, bouncing bomb inventor Sir Barnes Wallis and Sir Maurice Wilkes, father of the UK computer industry. Since then, the cream of the UK engineering profession has been invited to join the Fellowship.
Professor Cryan is delighted by his new distinction. “Despite the many and highly-varied demands that come with being Vice-Chancellor of a go-ahead University, I have always maintained a parallel career as a researcher in my branch of engineering. To be chosen as Fellow of the Royal Academy is a huge honour – but it is a tribute to the University of Huddersfield too, because it is here that I graduated in engineering and lectured in the subject while studying for my first doctorate.”
Professor Cryan went on to have a distinguished academic career in the field of electrical and electronic engineering and physics at a sequence of UK universities – at the age of 30 he became UK’s youngest Professor of Engineering – before returning to Huddersfield as Vice-Chancellor in 2007.
The Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering comes in a year that has seen Professor Cryan bestowed with a sequence of honours. In January, he received his CBE at Buckingham Palace (and is pictured with his award) and in April it was announced that he would become Vice-President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, a post he takes up in November.
