Emeritus ProfessorRodSmith

The principal funding for the Future Rail Research Centre comes from Network Rail, the Royal Academy of Engineering and EPSRC.

Structural integrity, railway engineering, energy and sustainable engineering.

Invited Lectures and Presentations

In 2007 Professor Smith gave three prestige lectures:

The 95th Thomas Hawksley Lecture for the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, "Energy for Transport"

The 55th Hatfield Lecture at the University of Sheffield, "Railways and Materials: Synergetic Progress"

and the Royal Academy of Engineering / Lloyd's Register Educational Trust Lecture, "Cape Diem:The Dangers of Risk Aversion"

The Hawksley Lecture, originally given at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers London Headquarters on 13 December 2007, has been repeated at many regional centres across the country including Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Southampton and Belfast. It also formed the basis of the 2008 HIgginson Lecture at Durham University on 28th October 2008.

Also in 2007, Professor Smith was awarded the W M Thornton medal of the the Institute of Metals Materials and Mining. The Thornton medal (incorporating the Clark Maxwell Award) is given to a speaker invited to present at either an Institute conference or another specially convened meeting.

Earlier lectures include:

On 23 September 2006, I gave the Jenkin Lecture to the Society of Oxford University Engineers, on "Railways: the technical challenges of their renaissance". This was the final event of an academic year which saw my return to my old undergraduate college in Oxford, St John's, as Senior Visiting Research Fellow.

In 1998, I gave the 10th Vernon Clancy Memorial Lecture: Fatigue In Transport: Problems Solutions & Future Threats

which was subsequently published in Transactions of Institution of Chemical Engineers, Part B, Process Safety &Environmental Protection, Vol 76, No B3, 1998, pp 217-223.