Royal Holloway is delighted to announce the appointment of Professor David M Howard as Head of the Department of Electronic Engineering, with a starting date of 18th January 2016.
David joins the College from the University of York’s Department of Electronics where he has been Head of Department twice, Head of the Audio Lab Research Group and an EPSRC Senior Media Fellow.
He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng), Fellow of theInstitution of Engineering and Technology(FIET), Senior Member of the Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (Senior MIEEE), and Fellow of the Institute of Acoustics (FIOA). David’s innovative research explores the links between creativity and engineering through music technology both as an academic and an accomplished musician. He is a choral director, choral singer, organist and a founder member of the York Centre for Singing Science.
David commented,
“I am looking forward to joining Royal Holloway at this exciting time; starting a new department is a rare opportunity and being able to focus on creativity up-front in the context of engineering is what should come first if the UK is to train world-class engineers for its future. I’m very pleased to have been made to feel so welcome here and am looking forward to the challenges ahead.”
The Department of Electronic Engineering will be an exciting addition to the Faculty of Science at Royal Holloway, welcoming its first undergraduate students in September 2017. David Howard will be closely involved with all aspects of development, from the recruitment of staff to the accreditation of degree programmes by the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET). A top priority will be to attract more women to achieve a genuine gender balance in a subject where the national average for female students is only 10-15% of the cohort.
Professor Paul Hogg, Vice Principal and Dean of Science, commented,
“I am very pleased to welcome David Howard to lead the new department, contributing a wealth of expertise in this area. This will position Royal Holloway to build on our existing expertise in Computer Science, Information Security and advanced electronic devices in Physics, and also fulfil an important role in the growth of the regional economy, which is home to the majority of the UK’s electronics business. It will complement Royal Holloway’s support for the launch of a University Technical College (UTC) in Guildford which has electronic engineering and computer science as its focus.“