E3 academy founder named fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering

Newcastle University’s Head of the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Professor Barrie Mecrow, has been elected a member of the most exclusive fellowship in the engineering profession.

Every year, the Royal Academy of Engineering creates 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.

This week, Professor Mecrow was named one of the 2015 cohort.
Honoured as an “outstanding and innovative engineer”, Professor Mecrow has made significant contributions to the invention of new forms of motors and drives, the development of fault tolerant machines and drives and ultra-high efficiency machines. His research has been widely adopted by industry and influenced a significant number of commercial applications from domestic products to heavy engineering devices.

Outside his research, Professor Mecrow is also the founder of the highly successful E3 Electrical Energy Engineering Academy, a sponsorship programme set up to support the next generation of electrical engineers.

On being elected a Fellow, Professor Mecrow said: "It is a great honour to be elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. I have worked with many outstanding colleagues during my career – both in academia and industry – and have also had the honour of teaching hundreds of very talented young people, many of whom are now leading engineers in their own right. My career and achievements have been influenced by all of them and I am very grateful for that."

Professor Steve Homans, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering, said: “This is one of the greatest accolades that can be awarded to an engineer. Professor Mecrow’s success clearly shows that Newcastle can rightly boast of having academics at the leading edge of engineering research.”

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 Dame Ann Dowling DBE FREng FRS, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said: “The commitment and energy of our Fellows is the lifeblood of our Academy. Our new Fellows join us today as the country’s most innovative and creative minds from both academia and industry. We look forward to working with them, learning from their successes and drawing on their considerable expertise as we continue our work to promote engineering at the heart of society.”

The new Fellows join around 1500 others at the Academy, with new members elected annually to join the Fellowship in recognition of their outstanding contributions to engineering.

published on: 29 September 2015