First awarded more than 70 years ago,the prestigious James Clayton Prize for advancing modern engineering science was won last year by Anne Neville for her work on corrosion, lubrication and wear.
Neville has attracted £34 million of research funding during her career, and has countless patents and publications for her work in these fields. The applications of her research can be found in the oil and gas and the marine sectors as well as in biomedicine.
Her recent work on artificial hip joints has shown that corrosion is a highly significant factor in their total degradation, a factor that had been ignored for many years. She says: “The fundamental principles of tribo-corrosion for the oil and gas environment are similar to those in hip joints, and it is crucial to understand the science in order to solve the problem in both environments.”
Neville enjoys talking to secondary school pupils about science and engineering. “It is important that school children at all levels are informed about engineering,” she says. “I want the profession to be inclusive, and for young people to see that engineering is a great career choice.
“I see lots of very able girls choosing to do engineering at university. If we are to make a step change in the number of women engineers, we need to encourage all girls to have the confidence to make this their career choice and break down the idea that engineering can’t be combined with a happy family life.”
Neville describes winning the James Clayton Prize as one of the “major highlights” of her career. “It’s great to see mature fields like corrosion and tribology producing some of the best engineering science and tackling problems,” she says.
“This is only possible by having some of the most fantastic PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and collaborators. I have been lucky to work with talented engineers and scientists across disciplines.”
Diversity is a key criterion for another Prestige Award, the Verena Winifred Holmes Award, which commemorates the first female member of the IMechE. The definition of this award is broad, to allow for a wide pool of potential candidates, who will have shown to have appreciated the “value difference” offered by diversity and inclusivity in engineering.
The last Verena Winifred Holmes Award was presented to Yassmin Abdel-Magied, a young Muslim woman in Australia who works in the oil and gas sector, for her efforts to encourage diversity in engineering. Abdel-Magied, who has a first-class degree in mechanical engineering, says: “It is incumbent on you to encourage others, as we all play a part in creating the ideal future. It is the duty of all engineers to support diversity.
“The award acknowledges the work of Youth Without Borders and highlights the importance of diversity and inclusiveness in our world. Hopefully it will also allow us to reach more people with the message that we should all get involved in making our society and our industry as diverse, inclusive and awesome as possible.”
The Alastair Graham-Bryce Award was won by Paul Stinchon in 2016 in recognition of his work to encourage young people to enter the profession. Stinchon, a manufacturing systems engineer, has developed a programme for students to visit his workplace, the Rolls-Royce aerospace plant at Barnoldswick, Lancashire.
He recruited 15 volunteers to help deliver the visits, as well as presentations, videos and information sheets. The initiative has proven popular with local schools and they conduct eight visits a year, introducing 500 children to the opportunities and benefits of a technical career.
Stinchon says engineers at Rolls-Royce have a renewed pride in what they are doing, as they demonstrate the world-class engineering processes. “By showcasing what we do we can have a positive impact on young people,” he says.
The Thomas Hawksley Gold Medal was won in 2016 by Hiroshi Yabuno and four colleagues for their paper “Theoretical and experimental analyses on stabilisation of hunting motion by utilising the traction motor as a passive gyroscopic damper”, which explores a novel method for increasing speed on railways.
Meanwhile the George Stephenson Gold Medal was won by Bridget Eickhoff and seven colleagues for their paper “Track loading limits and cross-acceptance of vehicle approvals”, which reports on a major piece of work carried out by a consortium of companies and universities to deal with key railway interoperability issues in vehicle dynamics and vehicle-track interaction.
Eickhoff says: “This award is recognition of the value of the project to the industry. The contributors worked to produce valuable results that will enable more cost-effective introduction of new and modified railway vehicles.”
Seibum Choi and two colleagues received the Award for Risk Reduction in Mechanical Engineering last year for their paper “Integrated vehicle mass estimation for vehicle safety control using the recursive least-squares method and adaptation laws”. The paper describes an integrated set of estimation algorithms that work together, combining measures of longitudinal and lateral vehicle dynamic behaviour to give a mass estimation.
Choi says: “I have dedicated my entire career to enhancing vehicle safety and energy efficiency. This award draws attention to these seminal topics.”
Finally, 2016’s James Watt International Gold Medal was awarded to Professor Dame Ann Dowling for her work with low-emission combustion and noise reduction in cars and aircraft. Dowling is professor of mechanical engineering at Cambridge University, a non-executive director at BP, a board member at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and a technical consultant at Rolls-Royce.
Her career spans from working on the aero-acoustics of Concorde to leading the Silent Aircraft Initiative, a more recent collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A staunch advocate of encouraging women to join the profession, she believes strongly in the contribution that engineers can make to society.
She says: “The main challenges for engineers are how to make sure that all the world’s population can have the same standard of living that we enjoy in the developed countries. Engineers need to help provide that in a sustainable way.”
2017 Prestige Awards
- The £10,000 James Clayton Prize recognises a recent exceptional contribution to mechanical engineering and related science and invention.
- The £5,000 Alastair Graham-Bryce Award is presented to an individual or group for encouraging young people into engineering careers.
- The £1,500 Verena Winifred Holmes Award is for demonstrating the value of diversity and listening to and respecting the perspectives of others.
- The Thomas Hawksley and George Stephenson Gold Medals are awarded for the best original research papers published by the institution.
- The Award for Risk Reduction in Mechanical Engineering is worth £1,500.
- The James Watt International Gold Medal is presented every two years to an eminent engineer who has attained worldwide recognition in mechanical engineering. It will be awarded again in 2018.
The closing date for all applications is 31 March 2017. Visit imeche.org/prestigeawards