Profile

I have an amazingly varied job. When I’m not giving lectures, tutorial and laboratory demonstrations, I do a lot of research and consultancy for companies.

Teaching is fun – I try to demonstrate engineering principles through project work. My students build “speed” boats (although they don’t go that fast) to bring a cargo across the loch (“lake” to non-Scots) on campus; this way we learn about buoyancy and stability. It’s a very fun learning environment!

Research is a real joy – I am developing solar panel systems for domestic heating. As part of a collaboration with other universities, I are also developing a small renewable energy power plant to bring electricity to an off-grid community in India. I have an amazing team of postgraduate students and research associates who work really well together.

They make my job easy. We plan meetings, decide on a plan of action, review designs, build prototypes, experimentally test our designs and theories AND hopefully help companies and society.

I have a lot of freedom in my job. Yes, I work to a schedule for lectures etc, but most of my week and during the summer months, I have the freedom to indulge my engineering interests. So no two days are the same…

I manage a research group who are working on a wide range of renewable energy projects, like:

Solar Panel Design for Domestic Heating
Thermal Stoage, use of the heat we heat we collect when we need it
Solar Powered Water Desalination
Concentrated Solar Power Plant Development (where we use mirrors and lenses to focus the sun to a very hot spot before we convert it to electricity)

I also have the opportunity to work with:

Surgeons and Physiologists to develop devices for blood flow measurement and muscle rehabilitation
Brewers and Distillers to integrate renewables into their processes
Electronics and Computing Companies to keep their electronic cool or look for ways to use the waste heat.

So day to day I do background research (lots of reading, lots of learning); I hold planning and design meeting; I allocate work packages (design, build, test, model etc) and I do a lot of that myself too…every day is different, because the projects keep changing, evolving; it’s very exciting to review progress!

Engineers are tactile learners, in fact the more senses we use when trying to learn, discover and understand, the better! We like to see, touch, hear, smell (well not always) and even taste (if it’s safe) engineering principles. It is the best way of communicating – the best way to understand how things work.

If I were to win the money, I’d develop some interactive demos. This might be of a small solar panel, or a Stirling Engine heat engine that converts heat to electricity, or a wind turbine…but I’d prefer to develop something from the interaction I’ll have with you through I’m an Engineer! Suggestions welcome.

To ensure maximum impact, I’d also like to make short (and interactive) podcasts of the demonstrations with hyperlinks to read more/see more/learn more.