Four engineers are honoured by the IET
20 April 2010
Four engineers will be officially honoured for their contributions to the engineering world. Prof. Donal Bradley CBE has been named 2010 recipient of the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s (IET) highest honour – the Faraday Medal, while Prof. Kel Fidler, Rev. Stuart Poole and Prof. Sir Michael Brady are all to be awarded IET Honorary Fellowships.
Prof. Bradley is to be awarded the Faraday Medal in recognition of his internationally acclaimed contributions to the development of molecular electronic materials and devices. Plastic electronics, as the technology is widely known, embodies a paradigm shift towards low temperature, solution-based device fabrication with applications in energy efficient displays and lighting, photovoltaic energy generation and medical diagnostics.
Commenting on the award, Prof. Bradley said: “I am delighted to have been accorded the great honour of receiving the IET Faraday Medal. It is a very timely reminder of the growing importance of plastic electronics, a technology that the UK has played a major role in developing and which it now has a great opportunity to commercially exploit. I am very much enjoying working with my colleagues within Imperial College and elsewhere to promote the creation of a thriving UK plastic electronics industry.”
Prof. Bradley holds the Lee-Lucas Chair of Experimental Physics at Imperial College London and is Director of the College Centre for Plastic Electronics and Deputy Principal of the Faculty of Natural Sciences. He co-founded Cambridge Display Technology Ltd in 1992 whilst an assistant lecturer in the Cavendish Laboratory.
Since returning to Imperial College in 2000 he has engaged in further entrepreneurial activities as co-founder and director of Molecular Vision Ltd, a spin-out company that develops low-cost point of care diagnostic devices for use in the doctor's surgery and in the home. He subsequently helped to create technology consultancy C-Change LLP, which in turn has co-founded The Solar Press (UK) Ltd, a start-up company developing organic photovoltaics, of which he is also a director.
Prof. Bradley recently acted as expert advisor to the UK parliamentary Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills committee, assisting the engineering inquiry that led to the 2009 launch of a UK Strategy for Plastic Electronics. He currently serves on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills sponsored Plastic Electronics Leadership Group tasked with refining and implementing the strategy’s recommendations.
Prof. Bradley is one of the 1989 co-inventors of conjugated polymer of electroluminescence. This discovery triggered a dramatic surge of interest in solution processed electronic materials and devices while seeding plastic electronics as an exciting new research field.
Further inventions, numbering 25 patent families, span materials, processes and device architectures for plastic electronics applications. His academic research has also yielded numerous highly cited journal papers and he is the recipient of many prizes and awards, this year being awarded a CBE for services to science and delivering the Royal Society Bakerian Lecture.
The Faraday Medal, named after the pioneering scientist Michael Faraday, is awarded for notable scientific or industrial achievement in engineering or for conspicuous service rendered to the advancement of science, engineering and technology.
Prof. Fidler is to be awarded an IET Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his long and distinguished service to the advancement of science, engineering and technology.
Prof. Fidler is a world-renowned expert in electronic circuit design and active filter design. He has research interests in circuit theory, filter design, CAD and communications system modelling, testing and verification. He has published over 100 papers and several books.
Prof. Fidler commented: “After almost 50 years of active engagement with the IET and the IEE before it, from which I have derived great benefit, it is enormously satisfying and a wonderful surprise to receive this ultimate accolade from my professional institution – an award for which I am deeply grateful and absolutely delighted.”
Prof. Fidler was elected Chairman of the Engineering Council in 2005, and re-elected in 2008. He chaired the Engineering Council group that developed the UK-SPEC registration standard, the Engineering Council Output Standards Working Party, and the Engineering Council Registration Standards Committee.
Rev. Stuart Poole is to be awarded an Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his unparalleled contribution to the IET throughout his career.
He has been involved extensively with engineering from his early career in the 1950s when he worked in the aircraft industry to the 1980s when he was Head of the Electrical Engineering Department at Manchester Polytechnic.
Rev. Stuart Poole commented: "This is a most unexpected honour. It has been both a privilege and a pleasure to be involved over the years with so many committed members.”
His expertise in clearly identifying and defining problems and providing his wealth of knowledge to resolve them has made him a well respected and highly regarded member of the engineering profession. Stuart’s contribution to the work of the IET and its predecessor organisations has been immense, particularly following his retirement.
Sir Michael Brady is to be awarded an IET Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his sustained and exceptional contributions to engineering and informatics.
He is noted for his contributions to artificial intelligence, robotics and image analysis, primarily in medicine. Sir Michael has the rare ability to derive fundamental mathematical theory in uncertainty and complexity, use this to model practical problems, and apply the results.
Sir Michael Brady commented: "The IET is the world-renowned, leading professional institution in my field, and so, as someone who has strived to do both fundamental research in robotics and medical image analysis and take the fruits of that research to commercialisation, this award is a major accolade. My hope is that young engineers will live the symbiosis between fundamental research and commercialisation."
Sir Michael Brady established Oxford’s world-renowned robotics research laboratory and he created medical image analysis tools improving breast cancer treatment, leading the pioneering Grid mammography e-Diamond project. He also co-directs the Oxford Cancer Imaging Centre, one of four national centres created by CRUK and EPSRC. A recipient of the IET’s Faraday Medal, he was knighted in 2004.
The IET Honorary Fellowship is given to persons distinguished by their work in any engineering discipline or whom the IET desires to honour for services rendered.
The awards will be presented on 24 November 2010 at the IET Awards Ceremony.
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