Michael Lowe
{{short description|British mechanical engineer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
Michael (Mike) Lowe FREng is a British mechanical engineer. Since 2019, he has been the Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London. He is a Professor in Non-Destructive Testing (NDT), with particular interests in structure-guided ultrasound, wave theory, wave scattering, materials characterisation, and analytical and numerical modelling.
Education
Lowe received a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in civil engineering from the University of Edinburgh in 1979. He received Master of Science (MSc) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees in mechanical engineering from Imperial College London in 1987 and 1993 respectively.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2020|title=M Lowe|url=https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/m.lowe|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=Imperial College London}} His PhD research was performed under the supervision of Professor Peter Cawley.{{Cite web|last=Lowe|first=Michael|date=1991|title=Plate waves for the NDT of diffusion bonded titanium|url=https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/handle/10044/1/8011|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=|hdl=10044/1/8011 }}
Research and career
Between 1979 and 1989 he worked for WS Atkins (Consultant Engineers, Epsom, UK), specialising in the application and development of numerical methods for the solution of problems in solid mechanics. In 1989 he moved to a research position at Imperial College London, was appointed as an SERC Research Fellow in 1992, and onto the academic staff in 1994.{{Cite web|last=Barbu|first=Nadia|date=2019|title=New Head of Department in Mechanical Engineering|url=https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/193193/new-head-department-mechanical-engineering/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=Imperial College London}}
He is a director of Guided Ultrasonics Ltd., a spin-out company that was set up to commercialise the outputs of research in ultrasonic guided waves. He was the creator of the leading software modelling tool DISPERSE,{{Citation|last1=Pavlakovic|first1=Brian|title=Disperse: A General Purpose Program for Creating Dispersion Curves|date=1997|url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5947-4_24|work=Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation: Volume 16A|pages=185–192|editor-last=Thompson|editor-first=Donald O.|series=Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation|place=Boston, MA|publisher=Springer US|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-1-4615-5947-4_24|isbn=978-1-4615-5947-4|access-date=2021-01-20|last2=Lowe|first2=Mike|last3=Alleyne|first3=David|last4=Cawley|first4=Peter|editor2-last=Chimenti|editor2-first=Dale E.|url-access=subscription}} which calculates the properties of elastic/sound waves that are guided in structural forms such as plates and pipes.
As of December 2020, his research had been cited over 14,600 times.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2020|title=M Lowe|url=https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5j1lvucAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=Google Scholar}}
= Honours and awards =
He was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2014.{{Cite web|last=De Faveri|first=Giorgio|date=2014|title=Stars of industry and academia elected to the Royal Academy of Engineering|url=https://www.raeng.org.uk/news/news-releases/2014/september/stars-of-industry-and-academia-elected-to-the-roya|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=Royal Academy of Engineering}} Since 2002, he has been a Fellow of the British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing (FInstNDT) and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP). Since 1986, he has been a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (FIMechE) and a Chartered Engineer (CEng).{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2020|title=M Lowe - Honours and Memberships|url=https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/m.lowe/honours-and-memberships.html|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=Imperial College London}}
He was awarded the Roy Sharpe prize from the British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing in 2010{{Cite web|title=Roy Sharpe Prize|url=https://www.bindt.org/about-us/Roy-Sharpe-Prize/?cookie-accept=1|access-date=2021-01-20|website=www.bindt.org}} and the Roentgen Award from the International Committee for Non-Destructive Testing in 2012.{{Cite web|title=World Conferences and Roll of Honour|url=http://www.icndt.org/WCNDT|access-date=2021-01-20|website=www.icndt.org}}
Family
His brother, Paddy Lowe, is a British motor racing engineer.{{Cite web|last=Kenward|first=Michael|date=|title=A formula for success|url=https://www.ingenia.org.uk/Ingenia/Articles/c24d588a-4db1-41d1-949e-0fff46bf1e07|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-12-30|website=www.ingenia.org.uk}} They were the first brothers to both be elected as a FREng.
References
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Category:British mechanical engineers
Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Category:Alumni of Imperial College London
Category:Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering
Category:Fellows of the Institute of Physics