Julia King

Julia King at the CBI Climate Change Summit 2008

Professor Dame Julia Elizabeth King, DBE, FREng (born 11 July 1954) has been the Vice-Chancellor of Aston University since 2006.

Education

King was born on 11 July 1954.^[1] She graduated from the University of Cambridge (New Hall) with a degree in natural sciences in 1972.^[2] Her PhD degree, also from Cambridge in 1978, was in fracture mechanics.^[2]

Career

King continued at Cambridge as a Rolls-Royce research fellow for 2 years before taking a post as a lecturer at the University of Nottingham from 1980 to 1987.^[1] She then returned to Cambridge, holding a series of research and teaching positions from 1987 to 1994.^[1] In 1994 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 as Vice-Chancellor.^[3]

Other positions

She has held a number of senior public appointments and works closely with Government on education and technology issues. She is a membeer of the Committee on Climate Change,^[4] the Airports Commission,^[5] is the UK’s Low Carbon Business Ambassador ^[6] and was previously a non-executive Director of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

She was an inaugural member of the Governing Board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology and is a former member of the World Economic Forum Automotive Council. She was a Board member of the Engineering and Technology Board (now EngineeringUK) from 2004 to 2008 and led a Royal Academy of Engineering Working Party on "Educating Engineers for the 21st Century" which published its final report in June 2007. King has advised the Ministry of Defence as Chair of the Defence Science Advisory Council and the Cabinet Office as a member of the National Security Forum. She was also a non-exeuctive memver of the Technology Strategy Board for five years.

She is a non-executive Director of Angel Trains^[7] and the Green Investment Bank,^[8] and a member of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership,^[9] the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council,^[10] and the Board of Universities UK, chairing its Innovation and Growth Policy Network.^[11]

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.^[12] The interim analytical report was published in October 2007,^[13] and the final recommendations in March 2008. She 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, John Collier, Lunar Society,^[14] Constance Tipper,^[15] Bengough and Kelvin medals as well as the Erna Hamburger Prize and the 2012 President's Prize of the Engineering Professors' Council.^[12]

Honours

In 1997 she was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to materials engineering in the 1999 Birthday Honours. 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. In 2006 she presented the Higginson Lecture.^[16] On 5 May 2010, she discussed the challenges and opportunities that surround low-carbon transport when she delivered the Institution of Chemical Engineers 6th John Collier memorial lecture.^[17][18] She is the UK government's low carbon business ambassador.^[17]

She was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to higher education and technology.^[19]

References

External links

• Interview with Julia King
• Aston University
• The King Review of low-carbon cars