Julia Higgins

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Dame Julia Higgins DBE FRS FREng (b. Julia Stretton Downes on 1 July 1942) is Professor of Polymer Science in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology at Imperial College London.

In 1999, she was elected as Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering.

On 1 November 2006, she finished her five year appointment as Vice President and Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society. She is a member and former Chair of the steering committee of the Athena project - a UK wide government funded activity to improve recruitment, retention and advancement of women in academic posts in Science Technology and Medicine.

Professor Higgins was president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science from 2003 until 2004.

In April 2003 she became Chairman of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. She was succeeded by John Armitt on the 1st April 2007.

In June 2006 she was appointed Principal of the Faculty of Engineering at Imperial College London. The Faculty of Engineering at Imperial College is one of the largest in the UK, comprising nine departments with 1,000 staff, over 4,200 students and an annual turnover of around £80 million.

She is member of the World Knowledge Dialogue Scientific Board, and "Scientist in Residence" for the first symposium in 2006 in Crans-Montana (Switzerland).