Industrial Advisory Board

The KTN's Industrial Advisory Board is a group of senior industrialists drawn mainly from positions in R&D. They advise on industrial trends and opportunities where mathematics can have major impact, help to strengthen the industrial context of the KTN’s R&D consortia, monitor the progress of KTN projects, and advise on exploitation routes.

Chair:
Keith Winters

Members:
Philip Bond*
Peter Covey-Crump - formerly GCHQ
John Curtis - QinetiQ
Gavin Davies* - Arup
Chris Farmer - Schlumberger
Susan Franks* - Health and Safety Laboratory
Kevin Gell* - Tessella
Roger Gent - AeroTex UK LLP
Nick Hall-Taylor - Chemtech International
Peter Herdman* - ArjoWiggins
Peter Jones* - BIFFA
Clive Marsh* - AWE
Trevor Maynard* - Lloyd’s of London
John Melrose - Unilever
Chris Newton - Hewlett-Packard
Jim Norton - Institute of Directors
Sverrir Olafsson - BT
Peter Sadd - Premier Foods
Sanjiv Sharma* - Airbus
Colin Sillence - BAE Systems
Mike Walker* - Vodafone
Lincoln Wallen - Dreamworks Animation
Simon Watts* - Thales Aerospace
Richard Westoby* - Scottish and Southern Energy
Colin Wilson* - Home Office Scientific Development Branch

* new members appointed in the past year

Scientific Committee

The KTN's Scientific Committee is a group of senior academics who are committed to industrial collaboration. They advise on priority areas where mathematics will have greatest impact, provide peer review to strengthen the KTN's research proposals, monitor the scientific quality of KTN projects, and allow the KTN to deploy a coordinated academic resource.

Chair:
Dr John Ockendon FRS - University of Oxford

Members:
David Abrahams - University of Manchester
David Broomhead - University of Manchester
Chris Budd - University of Bath
Edmund Burke - University of Nottingham
Stephen Cowley* - University of Cambridge
Russell Davies - Cardiff University
Paul Dellar* - University of Oxford
Ian Dryden* - University of Nottingham
Richard Gibbens - University of Cambridge
Kevin Glazebrook* - Lancaster University
John King - University of Nottingham
Yaroslav Kurylev - University College London
Andrew Lacey - Heriot-Watt University
Daniel Lesnic* - University of Leeds
Sean McKee - University of Strathclyde
Alexander McNeil* - Heriot-Watt University
Geoff Nicholls* - University of Oxford
Kevin Parrott - University of Greenwich
Mike Paterson FRS* - University of Warwick
Colin Please - University of Southampton
Richard Purvis* - University of East Anglia
William Shaw* - King’s College London
Frank Smith FRS - University College London
Lenny Smith - London School of Economics
Jared Tanner* - University of Edinburgh
Peter Wild* - University of London, Royal Holloway
Eddie Wilson - University of Bristol
Jim Woodcock - University of York
David Wooff* - University of Durham

* new members appointed in the past year

Over the past year, we have expanded the KTN's Industrial Advisory Board and Scientific Committee, to provide advice from business and scientific perspectives in line with the KTN's evolving strategic directions and areas of focus.

New members of the Scientific Committee

Alexander MacNeil
Maxwell Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics at Heriot-Watt University
Mathematics and, in particular, probability and statistics lie at the heart of the models that Alexander develops for financial risk applications. Alexander aims to persuade more financial services companies of the benefits of engaging with applied mathematicians in developing quantitative models of financial risk.

Jared Tanner
Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh
Modern methods for signal processing are truly interdisciplinary, with many researchers of the same topics housed in schools of mathematics, electrical engineering, statistics, and informatics. Mathematicians in this area advance the fundamental theory, give new interpretations of algorithms, and allow for a rigorous analysis of techniques in order to make clear where and how further advances can be achieved. Jared will be acting in an advisory role for general applied mathematics initiatives, with an emphasis on projects relating to signal processing, communications, and large scale data sets.

Kevin Glazebrook
Professor of Statistics and Operational Research at Lancaster University
Kevin uses mathematics to design optimal (or near-optimal) dynamic controls for complex random systems. Application areas include queuing control, inventory management and maintenance/reliability. Kevin directs two EPSRC-funded national initiatives in Operational Research (OR), one relating to doctoral training (NATCOR) while the other (the LANCS Initiative) seeks to expand the UK’s research capacity in the mathematics of OR. Kevin is keen to encourage the growth of the KTN's portfolio of OR-related activity and has a particular interest in the development of doctoral training.

New members of the Industrial Advisory Board

Peter Herdman
Exploratory Research Manager for ArjoWiggins
Peter Herdman is Exploratory Research Manager for ArjoWiggins. Understanding and applying mathematics has allowed Peter to solve industrial problems, for example in diagnosing process problems which generated an extra £2 million per year in added profits in Papermaking for 10 consecutive years. Peter's intention is to help explain applications to a wider audience. To this end the KTN's recently published paper on Bayesian networks was a welcome first step - a copy was well received by his CTO who tried without success to penetrate this area with a text book some years earlier.

Kevin Gell
Founder and Managing Director of Tessella
Kevin Gell is the founder and Managing Director of Tessella, a leading provider of bespoke scientific software, mathematical modelling and simulation, and algorithm development. In the increasingly complex world in which we live, we need to work smarter, more efficiently, and greener, and we can reap benefits from applying rigorous mathematical techniques to break down major problems and devise innovative solutions. Through the Knowledge Transfer Network, Kevin aims to be able to pass on his experience gained from working with clients in Tessella's core market sectors of Life Sciences, Energy, Consumer Goods, R&:D and Public Sector.

Simon Watts
Deputy Scientific Director of Thales UK, Aerospace Division, MBE FREng
Prof Simon Watts MBE FREng is Deputy Scientific Director of Thales UK, Aerospace Division and also a Visiting Professor in the department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at University College London. Thales UK's aerospace division provides high quality prime contractor and systems integrator services and innovative equipment, systems and subsystems to the world's military and civil sectors. Signal and data processing are at the heart of most of their products and access to mathematical expertise in these areas is essential. Simon hopes to channel advice from Thales into the Industrial Mathematics KTN to promote work of value to the aerospace sector.