Professor Dame Ann Dowling has taken up the role of Head of Engineering at the University of Cambridge.

Professor Dowling was previously Head of the Energy, Fluid Mechanics and Turbomachinery Division at the Department and Director of the University Gas Turbine Partnership with Rolls-Royce. She has been at the forefront of research within the department and was the UK lead for the recent ‘Silent Aircraft’ initiative.

This initiative was a collaborative project between Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the aim of developing a conceptual design for an aircraft whose noise would be almost imperceptible outside the perimeter of a daytime urban airport.

Professor Dowling was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2008 for her contribution to research in aerospace science, in particular in acoustics and unsteady flows and the application of technology within that field.

She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering from 1999 until 2002.

After being appointed the title CBE for services to Mechanical Engineering in 2002, Professor Dowling received a DBE for services to Science in 2007.

Professor Dowling’s predecessor, Professor Keith Glover, has held the position for the past seven years.

Under Professor Glover, the Engineering Department came top of the rankings for General Engineering in the last Research Assessment Exercise.

The results placed Cambridge far ahead of other institutions in its class and the Department was shown to have the Best Engineering Research in the UK.

Professor Dowling said: ‘This really is a wonderful opportunity for me to work with the whole Department in developing the future of engineering at Cambridge. Professor Glover has done a superb job for the past seven years and I look forward to taking on this important role and the challenges ahead of me in ensuring continued excellence.’

The Department of Engineering is the largest department in the University of Cambridge, and is one of Europe’s largest integrated engineering departments.

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