Ayrton- Blériot Engineering Laboratory - ABEL

The International Research Laboratory is designed to harness artificial intelligence and emerging technologies across all engineering disciplines, with a primary focus on tackling grand challenges in sustainability and resilience.

The Lab is named for British physicist and electrical engineer, Hertha Ayrton, and French aviator Louis Blériot. Ayrton made important contributions to the study of electric arcs and the physics of waves in water with obstacles and boundaries and was the first woman elected to the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the first woman to read a research paper at a Royal Society meeting, and the first woman to receive the Society’s Hughes Medal, awarded for original discoveries relating to the generation, storage and use of energy. She invented the Ayrton fan used to repel clouds of poison gas in WWI. Louis Blériot piloted the first-ever successful flight in 1909 across a major body of water -- the English Channel -- in a heavier-than-air craft, connecting the UK and France via air travel for the first time.