Three Imperial experts elected Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering

Three leading academics from Imperial College London have been elected as new Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Imperial Professors Bassam Izzuddin, Kin Leung, and Roy Taylor have been formally elected to the Fellowship. The new elections take the number of Imperial Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering – one of the highest UK honours an engineer can receive – to 104.

Professor Bassam Izzuddin 

Professor Izzuddin is Professor of Computational Structural Mechanics and Head of the Computational Structural Mechanics group in Imperial’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is also the founder and developer of ADAPTIC, an adaptive static and dynamic structural analysis program for high-fidelity modelling of steel, concrete, composite and masonry structures.  

Professor Izzuddin’s research focusses on modelling whole buildings and masonry arch bridges under service and extreme loading conditions, like those caused by earthquakes, fires and blasts. A key feature of his work has been extensive national and international collaboration with fellow academics and leading players in the structural engineering industry, leveraging ADAPTIC to set the international agenda on several fronts.  

He has also made determined steps towards developing simplified design-oriented assessment techniques, including pioneering work on structural robustness, and proposing analogies which enhance the understanding by engineers of complex nonlinear structural phenomena.  

I am delighted to receive this honour from the Academy, recognising the synergistic impact of my work in fundamental computational mechanics, structural engineering research and engineering practice. Professor Bassam Izzuddin Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Of his election, Professor Izzuddin said: “I am delighted to receive this honour from the Academy, recognising the synergistic impact of my work in fundamental computational mechanics, structural engineering research and engineering practice.

"I thank my PhD students and post-doctoral researchers in the CSM Group for their passion and dedication over many years, and I am also thankful for the numerous fruitful collaborations with colleagues within the Department and outside.

"I am particularly excited about our ongoing work in computational mechanics on the conceptual and development fronts, applied research on masonry arch bridges and retrofitting of building structures, and practical assessment methods that are shaping the future of structural robustness design.” 

Professor Kin Leung 

Professor Leung is Tanaka Chair in Internet Technology in the Departments of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE), and Computing at Imperial.  He also serves as Head of the Communications and Signal Processing (CSP) Group in the EEE Department.

Professor Leung’s research focusses on optimisation and machine learning for the design and control of large-scale communications, computer, and sensor infrastructures. These include wireless technologies, internet of things, distributed and cloud computing, and vehicle communications, as well as neural networks and artificial intelligence 

I am honoured and humbled to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. I also feel privileged to spend the second half of my career at Imperial – an intellectual powerhouse. Professor Kin Leung Departments of Electrical and Electronic Engineering & Computing

His research solves major networking problems, establishes theoretical foundations, invents efficient architectures and algorithms for network control, and develops new network and service capabilities. These have been applied to national-wide infrastructures for civilian and defence applications. 

Of his election, Professor Leung said: “I am honoured and humbled to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. I also feel privileged to spend the second half of my career at Imperial – an intellectual powerhouse.

"I am very grateful to my research students at Imperial and collaborators in the UK and US for their simulating and fruitful collaborations. My work in education is not finished and I'm excited about what the next chapter may bring.” 

Professor Roy Taylor 

Professor Taylor is Professor of Ultrafast Physics and Technology in the Department of Physics. He is widely acknowledged for his influential basic research on and development of ultrafast laser systems and their application. 

He has contributed extensively to advances in picosecond (one trillionth of a second) and femtosecond (one quadrillionth of a second) dye laser technology, compact diode-laser and fibre-laser-pumped vibronic lasers and their wide-ranging application to fundamental studies. 

Professor Taylor is also particularly noted for his fundamental studies of ultrafast nonlinear optics in fibres, with emphasis on solitons, their amplification, the role of noise, and self-effects, such as Raman gain. 

it is an honour to get elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering and it is quite uplifting to get some recognition for the very diverse range of applied research and development that I have carried out Professor Roy Taylor Department of Physics

He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and of the Royal Society, London. He has published over 400 scientific papers, co-authored a book on lasers for schoolchildren and edited/co-edited two research textbooks. 

Of his election, Professor Taylor said: “Obviously, it is an honour to get elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering and it is quite uplifting to get some recognition for the very diverse range of applied research and development that I have carried out, aside from my fundamental studies, over my now more than 50-year career. However, at this stage of my career, some may consider it as a good attendance award, and I suppose they may have a point!” 

Fit for the Future 

One thing is certain – engineering skills, vision and leadership will play a crucial part in addressing the escalating domestic and global challenges that we face today. Sir Jim McDonald FREng FRSE President, Royal Academy of Engineering

The new Fellows will be formally admitted to the Academy at a special ceremony in London on 8 November, when each Fellow will sign the roll book. In joining the Fellowship, they will add their unique capabilities to the Academy’s mission to harness the power of engineering to create a sustainable society and an inclusive economy for all.  

Sir Jim McDonald FREng FRSE, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said: “I am delighted to welcome such an array of enormously talented people to the Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering. From industry and enterprise to education and government – both national and international – these are some of our most pioneering and distinguished engineers and technologists.  

“In an uncertain world, one thing is certain – engineering skills, vision and leadership will play a crucial part in addressing the escalating domestic and global challenges that we face today. The combined connectivity, professionalism, experience and wisdom of the new Fellows who join us today will greatly enrich the expertise and support we can provide to the government and to society in general.”