Dame Ann Patricia Dowling (born 15 July 1952) is a British mechanical engineer who researches combustion, acoustics and vibration, focusing on efficient, low-emission combustion and reduced road vehicle and

aircraft noise Aircraft noise pollution refers to noise produced by aircraft in flight that has been associated with several negative stress-mediated health effects, from sleep disorders to cardiovascular ones. Governments have enacted extensive controls that a ...

. Dowling is a Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and from 2009 to 2014 she was Head of the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, where she was the first female professor in 1993.www.theukrc.com
Women of Outstanding Achievement:Professor Dame Ann Dowling She was President of the

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senior ...

from 2014 to 2019, the Academy's first female president.

Education

Dowling was educated at Ursuline Convent School, Westgate, Kent, and the University of Cambridge (as a member of Girton College), where after studying mathematics at undergraduate level, and following a summer job at the

Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...

, she was awarded a PhD degree in 1978. Dowling's doctorate was in aeroacoustics, specifically on the Concorde noise problem.

Career

Dowling's research career has been at University of Cambridge starting as a research fellow in 1977 but she has held visiting posts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( Jerome C Hunsaker Visiting Professor, 1999) and at the California Institute of Technology (Moore Distinguished Scholar 2001). Dowling is one of four main panel chairs for the Research Excellence Framework.HEFCE announcement of panel chairs
accessed 16 July 2010 On 3 February 2012, the oil company BP announced that Dowling was to become a non-executive director with immediate effect.BP Board Changes
3 February 2012 She has been a non-executive board member at BIS since February 2014.

Awards and honours

Dowling was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 1996 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2003. Her FRS nomination reads: . Dowling was elected an international member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2008 for advances in acoustics and unsteady flow, and for leadership in collaborative research between industry and universities. In February 2013 Dowling was listed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by '' Woman's Hour'' on BBC Radio 4. and was the subject of an episode of '' The Life Scientific'' in 2012. Dowling is a Patron of the Women's Engineering Society (WES). In January 2014 Dowling was nominated for election as President of the

. She took up the position in September 2014, and in that role chaired a 2015 review (the 'Dowling Review') of business–university research collaboration, published in July 2015. She was appointed a CBE in 2002 and promoted to DBE in 2007. In 2016 she was appointed to the

Order of Merit The Order of Merit (french: link=no, Ordre du Mérite) is an order of merit for the Commonwealth realms, recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. Established in 1902 by K ...

. The James Watt International Gold Medal was awarded to her in 2016 by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers ''for her work associated with efficient, low emission combustion; and understanding, modelling and reducing the noise from cars, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft'' . In November 2017, Dowling was elected to the Chinese Academy of Engineering alongside 18 foreign individuals including Bill Gates and L. Rafael Reif. In 2019 she received the

Royal Medal The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important ...

.Royal Medal 2019
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References

External links

Sidney Sussex College news
Ann Dowling's University of Cambridge Department of Engineering bioCreating silent skies – Professor Dame Ann Dowling CBE FREng
''Ingenia'', Issue 37, Dec 2008
www.theukrc.com
Women of Outstanding Achievement:Professor Dame Ann Dowling {{DEFAULTSORT:Dowling, Ann 1952 births Living people British women engineers British mechanical engineers British people of Irish descent Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire Members of the Order of Merit Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Female Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Presidents of the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellows of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society Female Fellows of the Royal Society Directors of BP British corporate directors Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge Members of the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering 21st-century women engineers Foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Engineering People from Thanet (district) Engineering professors at the University of Cambridge