Huddersfield University’s Vice Chancellor is following in the footsteps of Alexander Graham Bell.
Professor Bob Cryan hasn’t invented a new form of telephone, but he has been elected a Vice-President of The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) - a position held by both Bell and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi.
Other honorary fellows include Lord Kelvin, who developed the concept of absolute zero temperature; John Ambrose Fleming, whose thermionic valve was vital to early radio; and Charles Algernon Parsons, who pioneered the steam turbine.
IET originated in the 1870s and is now the world’s largest organisation in the field. Now its members have elected Professor Cryan, who was brought up in Deighton, as a Vice-President and he takes up the position in November.
The former Huddersfield New College pupil, who became the UK’s youngest Professor of Engineering at the age of 30, is a long-standing member and Fellow of the IET. In 1986 he received the IET’s top student award.
He said: “It is a great honour to be elected as a Vice-President of the IET, an organisation that has given me tremendous support over the years.
“I first became involved as a student member in the early 1980s and have remained actively involved ever since, making use of their amazing engineering periodicals and resources, and becoming involved in engineering education standards and chairing accreditation visits to both national and international universities.
“I am proud to be a Fellow of the IET and I am absolutely thrilled by this appointment and look forward to contributing further to the IET during my period of office.”
Prof Cryan is himself a graduate of Huddersfield University and was awarded the CBE in 2014 for services to education.
In 2007, at the age 42, he became the UK’s youngest Vice-Chancellor.
