Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi has been awarded the IET Faraday Medal for significant contributions to computing and systems engineering made during a 20-year career at the University of Southampton.

The Visiting Professor in Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) twice served as an Executive Dean in Engineering and Physical Sciences at Southampton before moving to King's College London in 2020.

He receives the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) honour for seminal theoretical and experimental contributions to manufacturing tests of system-on-chip, pioneering new test data and low power compression methods and algorithms for energy-efficient computing.

Professor Al-Hashimi joined ECS in 1999 and successfully led several national, large-scale interdisciplinary research programmes including the EPSRC Programme Grant PRiME as well as the Holistic project. In 2008, he founded the Arm-ECS Research Centre, which is now recognised as an exemplar for industry-academia collaboration.

Professor Al-Hashimi says: "I am honoured to receive the Faraday Medal from the IET in recognition of those students, colleagues and collaborators who have contributed so much to my research and leadership. It is both humbling and inspiring to be acknowledged in this way."

The computer and systems engineer was awarded a CBE in 2018 for services to engineering and industry, and continues to raise the UK's position in engineering higher education through various national and international leadership and advisory roles.

Professor Phil Nelson, Interim Dean of Engineering and Physical Sciences, says: "I would like to congratulate Bashir on this richly deserved honour. His vision and interdisciplinary focus has developed substantial areas of research that are transforming our fast-changing world, with his lasting impact seen in Southampton through initiatives like the award-winning Arm-ECS Research Centre.

"Bashir's contributions have been integral in sustaining Southampton's reputation as one of the best places in the UK for Electronics and Computer Science teaching and research, and I'm delighted that he is continuing his legacy here as a Visiting Professor."

Professor Al-Hashimi was awarded a personal Chair at ECS in 2004 and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering in the following decade.

He supervised over 40 PhD students to successful completion during two decades at Southampton, where he also published 380 referred technical papers and authored or co-authored seven books. His recent edited book, completed with ECS's Professor Geoff Merrett, can be found here.

The IET Achievement Awards exist to recognise individuals from all over the world who have made exceptional contributions to the advancement of engineering, technology and science in any sector. The Faraday Medal was previously awarded in 2001 to Professor Chris Harris, an Emeritus Professor of Computational Intelligence at ECS in Southampton.

University of Southampton student Oana Lazar has been named as the runner-up of the UK Electronics Skills Foundation (UKESF) 2020 Automotive Electronics Competition with a thought-provoking take on the future of driverless vehicles.

The fourth year MEng Electronic Engineering with Industrial Studies student reflected on cyber security concerns for connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) and the potential merits of adaptive 'digital twins' in the prize-winning think piece.

Oana is a UKESF Scholar, sponsored by UltraSoC, and is currently expanding her skills on a 12-month industrial placement from her degree.

"Automotive electronics has grown from a futuristic concept to a key field of engineering in just a few short years, and the UKESF Automotive Electronics Competition has inspired me to follow this exciting development," she says.

"CAVs are hitting the road faster than anticipated and we will soon be entering a transition from driving to being driven, when drivers will co-exist with driverless cars. While CAVs reduce human drivers' errors, a single CAV will have hundreds of electronic control units running millions of lines of code, all written by error-prone humans.

"Ensuring our code is bug-free, maintainable, and backwards-compatible to the extent required, all within an accelerated time-to-market, will be challenging. Regardless of whether you are inventing solutions or just sharing the road with CAVs, we will all be part of this exciting future."

UKESF Scholarships boost students' career prospects through a £1,000 annual bursary, paid work placements and mentoring from a leading employer in the electronics sector. Scholarships were awarded to 21 Southampton students this spring, representing over a third of all those awarded to the 22 universities in the scheme.

The 2020 Automotive Electronics Competition, run in partnership with AESIN and with support from UltraSoC, was exclusively open to UKESF partner universities.

"Through lectures by the IET, webinars by the IEEE, and projects such as UltraSoC’s Secure-CAV, I have been learning how this novel industry is changing almost all aspects of engineering, and especially software safety through standards such as MISRA," Oana says.

"It is an incredible honour to have been able to take a small part in this revolution by being selected as this competition’s finalist, so I would like to give my warmest thanks to the UKESF, AESIN, and UltraSoC for offering me this amazing opportunity, and to Professor Geoff Merrett for encouraging me to apply.

"Finally, I want to thank my late boyfriend Dan Colmer for introducing me to the world of cars and sharing his incredible enthusiasm with me, I hope he would have been proud of how far I have come."

You can read Oana's full entry to the 2020 Automotive Electronics Competition here.