Julia King CBE FREng is the Vice-Chancellor of Aston University.
King graduated from the University of Cambridge (New Hall) with a degree in natural sciences. Her PhD degree, also from Cambridge, was in materials. She was a lecturer at the University of Nottingham from 1980 to 1987, then at Cambridge from 1987 to 1994, when she moved to Rolls Royce where she held a number of senior positions. She was appointed chief executive of the Institute of Physics in September 2002. From September 2004 to December 2006 she was Principal of the Engineering Faculty at Imperial College London, after which she joined Aston University.
King has held a number of senior public appointments. She works closely with Government as a member of the Ministerial Group on Manufacturing, the Committee on Climate Change, and the National Security Forum. She spent four years advising the Ministry of Defence as Chair of the Defence Science Advisory Council, and five years as a non-executive member of the Technology Strategy Board.
She is also a member of the Governing Board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology and of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of Transportation. She was a Board member of the Engineering and Technology Board (now EngineeringUK) from 2004 to 2008. She led a Royal Academy of Engineering Working Party on ‘Educating Engineers for the 21st Century’ which published its final report in June 2007.
King was appointed by Gordon Brown the then Chancellor of the Exchequer in March 2007 to lead the King Review to examine the vehicle and fuel technologies that, over the next 25 years, could help to reduce carbon emissions from road transport.[1] The interim analytical report was published in October 2007,[2] and the final recommendations in March 2008.
King has published over 160 papers on fatigue and fracture in structural materials and developments in aerospace and marine propulsion technology, and has been awarded the Grunfeld, Bengough and Kelvin medals[1] for her research.
In 1997 she was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering and was made a CBE for ‘Services to Materials Engineering’ in July 1999. She is a Liveryman of the Goldsmiths Company, an Honorary Graduate of Queen Mary, University of London, and an Honorary Fellow of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, and of Cardiff University.
On 5 May 2010, King discussed the challenges and opportunities that surround low-carbon transport when she delivered the Institution of Chemical Engineers 6th John Collier memorial lecture.[3][4] She is the UK government's low carbon business ambassador.[3]