Sir William Arnot Wakeham (born 25 September 1944[1]) is a British chemical engineer. From 2001 to 2009 he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton.
Wakeham received his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Exeter University. He then served as a Research Associate at Brown University , and was then in 1971 appointed Lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology at Imperial College, London. He was successively Reader in 1979, Professor of Chemical Physics in 1985, and head of the Department of Chemical Engineering in 1988.
His academic specialty is thermodynamics, particularly the thermophysical properties of fluids and intermolecular forces.
In 1996 he was appointed Pro-Rector (Research) and subsequently also Deputy Rector and Pro-Rector (Resources) at Imperial College, holding these positions simultaneously,[2] and overseeing the College's merger with a series of London medical schools.
In 2007 the then Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, Rt. Hon. John Denham MP invited him to Chair a Review of UK Physics[3] which reported in October 2008.
He was knighted in the 2009 Birthday Honours.[4]