Professor John Wood (Imperial College London)

John Wood recently joined Imperial College London as Principal of the Faculty of Engineering, officially commencing his new role on 1 October 2007. John was previously Chief Executive of the Council for the Central Laboratories of the Research Councils (CCLRC) from 2001 to 2007 on leave from Nottingham University. He graduated from Sheffield University in 1971 in metallurgy and undertook research at Cambridge University for his PhD. He remained at Cambridge as Goldsmith's Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College until 1978 when he took up a lectureship at the Open University. In 1989 he became Cripps Professor of Materials Engineering at Nottingham University and Head of Department and subsequently became Dean of Engineering in 1998. His research has been in the area of materials processing of non-equilibrium structures where he has over 240 publications and 14 patents. He was awarded a Doctor of Metallurgy in 1994 from Sheffield University and an honorary Doctor of Science from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca in Romania, receiving the Citizen of Honour of Cluj-Napoca for his "help in restructuring materials engineering education in Romania". Cluj-Napoca is the capital of Transylvania!