Three academics from the University of Southampton have been recognised by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as inspirational scientists and engineers.

Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Dean of Physical Sciences and Engineering; Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt, Head of the Web and Internet Science Group and Chairman and Co-Founder of the Open Data Institute; and Professor Sir David Payne, Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre and Zepler Institute; were all named as RISE Renowned Fellows this week.

The RISE Renowned Fellows were chosen by an independent panel from nominees for the RISE awards who are Fellows of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Dame Wendy, Sir Nigel and Sir David will join 14 other RISE Renowned Fellows at a special dinner at the Cheltenham Science Festival, hosted by the incoming Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the EPSRC Professor Philip Nelson.

The EPSRC, in partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering, launched the RISE campaign towards the end of last year to mark the 20th anniversary of the EPSRC. As well as the RISE Renowned Fellows they also announced 10 RISE Leaders for 2014. These RISE Leaders are recognised as innovators in engineering and physical sciences research who will help inspire and encourage others. They will be paired with individuals from government, business or media to communicate the importance and impact of their research, helping their partners become champions for science.

They will also nominate researchers who are ‘Rising Stars’ tipped to lead internationally excellent research in the future.

Chairman of the panel and current CEO of EPSRC Professor David Delpy said: “One of the best aspects of my job at EPSRC has been the chance to meet and speak directly to some of the most exciting, innovative and enthusiastic scientists and engineers in the UK. This campaign gives us the chance to recognise these outstanding individuals, but also to let others get to know them and the great research that they are doing.â€?

Philip Greenish, Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering, commented: “The RISE awards are a unique opportunity to recognise established and future research leaders in engineering and physical sciences.

“RISE is part of the Engineering for Growth campaign which aims to bring engineering to the heart of society; celebrating the contribution of inspiring researchers to growth and innovation is a great way to help create a connection between engineering and daily life.â€?

A delegation from Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) has just returned from a successful trip to Penang to raise awareness among the electronics industry of the Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) programme at the University of Southampton’s Malaysia Campus (USMC).

The University welcomed its first students onto the new MEng EEE degree last year and the team, led by Associate Dean Enterprise and Internationalisation Professor Peter Smith, wanted to engage with industry in Malaysia to explore the opportunities for their students and graduates.

The trip included meetings with a range of different companies from large, high-profile corporations including Motorola Solutions Inc., Intel and Finisar, as well as a number of small and medium enterprises.

“This was a very valuable trip as the Penang area is a significant player in the global electronics industry,â€? said Peter. “The companies we met with were highly receptive to the distinctive nature of the EEE programme we offer at USMC. They also recognised the highly employable nature of our graduates and were keen to work with us to establish opportunities for collaboration, internships and future job recruits. They were particularly interested in the emphasis we place on embedded systems and our teaching of integrated circuit design

“The opportunities for our graduates in Malaysia are significant and we wanted to ensure that we are developing the links required to make sure our students are well prepared to maximise these opportunities. It was also great to see many of our University of Southampton alumni already working in these companies,â€? he added.

Clement Packham, Senior Engineering Manager at Motorola commented: “Southampton University provides a refreshing change in the university scene by paying extra attention to student quality at intake. It is obvious that students there benefit from close supervision and enhanced coaching from their lecturers.â€?

USMC is based at EduCity@Iskandar, in South Johor, and offers University of Southampton courses taught by leading academics in Malaysia.

The four year 2+2 MEng degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering will see the students spend the first two years studying in Malaysia before transferring to Southampton, UK, for the final two years. The programme has been approved by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency and accredited by the Institution of Engineering and Technology and combines ECS academics’ long experience in teaching excellent electrical engineering and electronic engineering programmes.

The EEE programme at USMC is identical to that offered at the Southampton campus, including the duplication of the outstanding ECS undergraduate laboratory facilities in Malaysia. As well as core EEE staff based at USMC, many academic staff from Southampton visit USMC to teach on the course.

To find out more about the EEE MEng degree visit www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/undergraduate/find_a_course or email malaysia@southampton.ac.uk

To find out more about our Malaysia Campus visit www.southampton.ac.uk/my

Scientists at the University of Southampton are aiming to develop a handheld testing device to provide same day diagnosis from a patient’s bedside. In the fictional Star-Trek universe, the tricorder was used to remotely scan patients for a diagnosis. The new device could replace the current conventional diagnostic method, which is lengthy and is limited to single point measurements, due to the prohibitive costs and sample volumes required, preventing continuous monitoring of disease progression. The research, which is led by Dr Themis Prodromakis, will develop hybrid technology using electronic components as chemical sensors on printed circuit boards (PCBs). The device can carry out diagnosis on the same day and at the point-of-care – potentially avoiding the need to send protein samples away to laboratories for chemical assessment and diagnosis. Consequently, the new device could lead to public health benefits in reducing the time to treatment and reducing costs in both diagnosis and late-diagnosis treatments. Dr Themis Prodromakis, a Reader in Nanoelectronics and EPSRC Fellow at the University of Southampton, says: “A project of this nature is the perfect illustration of how academia, manufacturing and the end user can come together to pool their knowledge and experience to make a real and valuable change. There is a real opportunity for this new diagnostic tool to make a tangible difference to healthcare not only in the UK but in international markets as well.â€? The project is in collaboration with researchers in the Department of Infection and Immunity at Imperial College Healthcare NHS, who will carry out all clinical trials throughout this three-year project, and Newbury Electronics, a leading manufacturer of PCBs in the UK who will bring their extensive knowledge of manufacturing techniques and materials to this innovative work. Philip King, director at Newbury Electronics said: “We are delighted to have been appointed as the manufacturing partner for this project. Themis and his team have come up with an exciting alternative to more traditional diagnostic methods and it is now our job, as the expert manufacturers, to help transform this idea into a feasible product. The inclusion of Imperial College as the clinicians to demonstrate the relevance of this research ensures that valid input from all sides is incorporated right from the initial stages.â€? The research is being funded by a £1 million grant, awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Dr Prodromakis and his team are currently working with Newbury Electronics to gain a better understanding of the PCB manufacturing process and how this can be refined and amended to use alternative materials and to finer degrees of accuracy. If the development work goes to plan, the first prototypes should be available for initial testing by next year.

Professor Bashir M. Al-Hashimi has been appointed as the new Dean of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering at the University of Southampton.

Professor Al-Hashimi, Associate Dean (Research) for the Faculty, will succeed Professor Dame Wendy Hall as Dean on 1 August 2014. Dame Wendy will take on a leading role in the University’s new Web Science Institute to be formally launched in June, as well as the new Centre for Doctoral Training in Web Science Innovation, which was recently announced by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). “It is a great privilege to be appointed as Dean of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering,â€? said Professor Al-Hashimi who previously served as Deputy Head of Education, Electronics and Computer Science at Southampton (2005-2008). “This is an exciting time to lead the Faculty, which I fully expect to contribute strongly towards achieving the University’s ambitious plans for distinction, globalisation and growth. “I look forward to building on the world-leading reputation of the Faculty in providing an environment that supports and rewards excellence in all its endeavours, inspiring both staff and students to achieve their full potential, and enabling all of its academic units and institutes to succeed and prosper,â€? he continued.

Congratulating Professor Al-Hashimi on his appointment, Vice-Chancellor Professor Don Nutbeam said: “I am delighted to confirm Bashir’s appointment as the new Dean of Physical Sciences and Engineering. His outstanding track record in research, his clear commitment to education, and equally strong reputation in the electronics industry brings a formidable mix of experience to the post of Dean.

“I would also like to pay tribute to Dame Wendy for her leadership and contribution to the University’s success as a member of our Executive Group. She is one of the world’s trailblazers in Web Science and we look forward to her continued work in pushing out the boundaries in this field through the Web Science Institute and our Centre for Doctoral Training,â€? he continued.

The founder and director of the University’s Pervasive Systems Research Centre, Professor Al-Hashimi has a worldwide reputation for research into energy-efficient, reliable and testable digital hardware with a strong track record of innovation in system-level power management and power-constrained testing of systems-on-chip used in handheld devices. He is currently a member of the REF2014 panel Electrical, Electronic Engineering, Materials and Metrology.

Professor Al-Hashimi leads the £5.6 million EPSRC programme called PRiME – Power-efficient, Reliable, Many-core Embedded systems. The project brings together four world-leading universities and five industrial partners, to address major research challenges in future high performance and low-energy embedded computing systems.

He also has a long association with the innovative microelectronics group ARM headquartered in Cambridge, which sponsors his professorial chair and for whom he is the co-director of the ARM-ECS (Electronics and Computer Science) research centre at the University of Southampton.

In 2013, Professor Al-Hashimi was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering joining the country’s most eminent and distinguished engineers. In January this year, Professor Al-Hashimi was awarded a highly prestigious Wolfson Research Merit Award by the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of science. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a Fellow of the British Computer Society – the Chartered Institute for IT - and a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology.

In an industrial and academic career spanning 25 years, Professor Al-Hashimi has authored 300 publications, authored, co-authored and edited five research books in topics ranging from electronic circuits simulation to low-power test of integrated circuits, system-on-chip to energy-efficient embedded systems. He is very proud of the career development of his students (successfully supervising 32 PhD theses), many of whom now hold senior positions in industry and academia worldwide.

A multidisciplinary team from the University of Southampton has won a national prize for their innovative research into the future of sociology in the digital age.

Dr Mark Weal, from Electronics and Computer Science (ECS); Professor Susan Halford, from Social Sciences; and Professor Catherine Pope, from Health Sciences, were awarded the SAGE prize for Innovation and Excellence in Sociology for their paper Digital Futures? Sociological Challenges and Opportunities in the Emergent Semantic Web that was published in the British Sociological Association’s (BSA) flagship journal Sociology.

The prize is awarded annually to the paper judged to be the most innovative and exceptional of all the papers published in the journal in the past year. It is one of four prizes awarded by the BSA for papers published in each of their prestigious journals – Cultural Sociology, Sociological Research Online, Sociology, and Work, Employment and Society.

Mark, Susan and Catherine’s paper stems from their innovative research into Web Science, a new discipline founded and pioneered by the University of Southampton.

It explores the future of sociology in the context of the digital age and is the first serious consideration of new kinds of digital data and ongoing transformations of the World Wide Web. In the paper they make the case that the emergent Semantic Web will have profound consequences for how research is thought about and done.

“We discussed the computer tools that are currently being developed to build a Semantic Web and the effects of this next generation Web on knowledge, data and expertise. We also looked at what the Semantic Web may offer sociological research and considered the implications of multidisciplinary engagement with the Web for the future of sociology,â€? said the team.

They were awarded £250 of SAGE books by Editor of Sociology Sarah Neal at the BSA’s annual conference in Leeds. There will also be a period of open access for their paper and SAGE will actively promote the paper over the coming year.

Mark said: “For me interdisciplinary research can often be the most challenging, but consequently the most rewarding. I have learnt so much through this collaboration and to have the paper recognised in this way is amazing.â€?

The trio initially worked together at the University’s £6m Research Councils UK Web Science Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) that brought together researchers and educators from across the University to pioneer Web Science masters education and research. Catherine was Deputy Director of the DTC from 2009-2012, Mark was the first UK lecturer in Web Science, and Susan is Co-Director of the new Web Science Institute at Southampton that is due to be officially launched in the summer.

“The paper grew out of our often intense conversations about the impact of the Web on society and the impact of people and technologies on the Web,â€? said Catherine.

“Working together on this paper has been one of the most intellectually exciting and challenging times of our careers. Multidisciplinary working is vital to Web Science. One discipline alone cannot help us understand this complex and rapidly changing technology and how it interacts with society,â€? said Mark.

The team is already collaborating with colleagues at the University and with external partners to develop some of the research ideas proposed in the paper.

Professor John McCanny, Director of the Institute of Electronics Communications and Information Technology (ECIT), Queen’s University Belfast, will be giving a Faculty Distinguished Lecture on Tuesday June 10th.

Professor McCanny will be speaking on the Successful translation of Academic Research into wider Economic Impact:

A nation or a region’s ability to remain competitive in a global economy is highly dependent on its ability to innovate and create new products and new services. A key aspect of this is the quality of its research. However, what is also critical is the environment and mechanisms to rapidly translate the outcomes of this research into wider economic impact and benefit. These issues and the challenges are now high on the agenda of many modern economies. This Lecture will give an overview of how these challenges are being addressed at Queen’s University Belfast through its Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT), the research flagship for the Northern Ireland Science Park (NISP).

Professor John McCanny is an international authority on special purpose silicon architectures for Digital Signal and Video Processing and Cryptography. He has published 5 research books, 360 peer reviewed research papers and holds over 20 patents. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the Irish Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET),and the Institute of Physics and Engineers Ireland. He is also a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.

A full summary of Professor McCanny’s lecture can be downloaded on the right of this page.

The event will take place in the Nightingale Lecture Theatre (67/1027) at 17.00, with refreshments available from 16.30. A drinks reception will follow. All are welcome but please register via Eventbrite beforehand: http://john-mccanny.eventbrite.co.uk.

Any questions should be e-mailed to Natasha Webb – n.webb@soton.ac.uk.

2014 sees the 9th Annual International Microelectronics Olympiad. Showcasing the world’s brightest and most talented young engineers, last year the Olympiad attracted over 600 participants from 22 countries.

For the first year, the UK will be competing in the competition with first stage heats hosted by the school of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton on the 4th of June

Can you rise to the challenges of design and test?

The event is open to all students under the age of 30 active in the field of microelectronics. This first stage event consists of a 120 minute knowledge-based test containing 30 multiple choice questions. One winner from this event will receive an all-expenses paid trip to Synopsys’ headquarters Armenia in October to participate in the final stage of the competition. All costs for this trip will be fully covered by sponsorship from Synopsys.

Test topics include • Digital IC Design and Testing • Analog and Mixed Signal IC Design and Testing • Semiconductor Devices and Technology • Mathematical and Algorithmic Issues of EDA

You can find more information about the Annual International Microelectronics Olympiad, including sample problems and solutions at: www.microelectronicsolympiad.am

How to Apply?

If you would like to participate send an email including your full name, student number and your course degree title by 27th of May to microelectronicsolympiad@ecs.soton.ac.uk

Confirmation of registration and further information of the event will be sent to all qualified participants by 28th of May

ECS alumni from almost 60 years attended this year's London reception, held at BMA House, London, on Tuesday 13 May.

Around 200 alumni were able to reconnect with fellow students and academic staff, and to hear news of latest developments in the University and in Electronics and Computer Science.

Professor Peter Smith, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering, told alumni that their support was invaluable to student activities in ECS, enabling student development projects, the establishment of student societies, and the creation of new mentoring programmes. Alumni also play a large part in the ECS Careers Hub activity by offering internships and graduate jobs to ECS students, by bringing their companies to the annual Careers Fair, and by taking part in the programme of student careers conferences.

Professor Smith also introduced Professor Tariq Durrani, distinguished alumnus of ECS, who is this year aiming to become President-Elect of the IEEE. All Graduate Student Members of the IEEE are elible to vote in this election. ECS alumni members can sign the petition electronically at: http://www.ieee.org/petition.

Professor Mark Zwolinski, Deputy Head of ECS, updated guests on recent developments, including the launch of the new degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Southampton Malaysia Campus, and the award to the University of the unique Regius Chair in Computer Science, to which Professor Nick Jennings was recently appointed.

The main address of the evening was given by Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Dean of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering, and Head of the School of Electronics from 2002 to 2007. Professor Hall is this year celebrating 40 years since graduating from her undergraduate degree at Southampton, and will be giving the keynote address at the University's annual alumni reunion event in July.

'ECS has always been a strong and lively community', said Professor Hall, 'and as we continue to innovate with new degrees and new research directions, it is wonderful to see that our alumni are playing such an enthusiastic and innovative role in technology development in their professional lives.

New initiatives for which ECS will be seeking alumni support in the future are the ECS-Inspire programme, which aims to help shape student development across the degree programme, and for enterprise activities, including business start-ups.

For further information on ECS alumni events or supporting student projects, careers activities, or research engagement, contact Joyce Lewis, Senior Fellow-Partnerships and Business Development (tel. 023 8059 5453).

See photos of the event on our flickr Photostream

Our LinkedIn Group: 'ECS Alumni, University of Southampton' contains information on all ECS alumni events, and has over 1300 members. Information on the July reunion is available from the Office of Development and Alumni Relations: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/alumni/2014reunionexperience_makeyourcomeback.html.

The University of Southampton is working in partnership with the government, educators and industry to boost female participation in technology and engineering.

The University’s pledge announced in May, aims to support a change in how women and girls are encouraged to consider technology and engineering careers and the subject choices or vocational pathways that lead to them.

The national aspirations of the ‘Your Life’ campaign is to double the number of women studying engineering and technology degrees at undergraduate level by 2030; boost the number of women pursuing careers in engineering and technology; and increase the number of young people studying maths and physics at 18.

The University will play a major part in this campaign through a number of activities between May 2014 and May 2015. These include:

• Expand on its successful Dragonfly Day to encourage more Year 9 female students to consider careers in science and engineering. • Support Theano, a University community providing guidance an professional development for female students and staff within STEM subjects through a variety of training and networking events with leading female role models • Host “Women in Engineeringâ€? seminars at open days to encourage women to study engineering and STEM subjects. • Deliver talks at the Women’s Institute to engage mothers and grandmothers in STEM subjects and encourage them to promote science and engineering to their families.

Professor Rachel Mills, Associate Dean for Natural and Environmental Sciences, said: “The University is proud to sign this important national commitment for action. We will build on our award winning work with young people to enable more women to access technology and engineering degree programmes. Increasing the diversity of the UK technology and engineering workforce over the next decades will be delivered through concerted, consistent and creative efforts by all of us.â€?

Skills and Enterprise Minister Matthew Hancock said: “There has never been a greater focus from government on inspiring people, especially women and girls, to take up science, technology, engineering and maths. STEM disciplines are the heartbeat of the modern world. From agriculture to aviation, the analytical and problem-solving skills they develop are more valuable than ever in a fast-changing, global economy. I'm delighted that 170 leading organisations are joining us in our commitment to inspiring more women and girls to take up study and training in these areas.â€?

To view the University of Southampton’s full pledge, please visit: http://www.yourlife.org.uk/signatories

Technology meets the natural world in one of the most innovative and creative modules of the ECS undergraduate programme.

Bringing together students from different degree programmes in ECS and different faculties across the University, the final-year Biologically-Inspired Robotics module requires students to design and build a robot, based on inspiration from the natural world.

"At present robots are very crude compared to organisms,â€? says Dr Klaus-Peter Zauner, joint course-leader. “This is the case at all scales from insect to elephant size, and in any category from endurance to sensing in ambiguous environments. We can still learn a lot from nature and this opens up the unusual opportunity for students to invent something significant within the scope of a single module.â€?

The students have just 12 weeks to research viable biological projects, devise workable solutions to the selected problem, build and demonstrate a final working device. and submit a project report.

"Our students are used to engineer to set specifications,â€? says Dr Zauner, “but in this module we don't set them a problem -- we ask them to come up with their own ideas. While the students find this very challenging they also regularly impress us with their innovations."

One of this year’s imaginative solutions was an innovative robotic fish, designed to imitate the natural sub-carangiform locomotion of a fish.

FISHER - a Fully Immersed Swimming Hydrodynamic Electronic Robot, used Body Caudal Fin (BCF) motion for forward propulsion, and pectoral fins for stability. The team of five ECS students - Arinze Ekwosimba, Andrew Cowan, Kenneth Payne, Jonathan Griffiths, and John Alton - designed a complex mechanical body using Computer Aided Design software, and manufactured the robot using the 3D printing and laser-cutting facilities in the ECS workshops.

A sophisticated control Printed Circuit Board was developed to mimic the segmented behaviour of an animal’s nervous system. These can be broadly categorised into the brain, communication and movement sections, and were implemented in FISHER using ARM Cortex M0 microcontrollers.

The swimming motion was facilitated by phased sine waves propagating along the fish against the direction of travel. By controlling the offset, amplitude and phase of these signals, the speed and direction of the fish could be controlled. The robotic fish was tested underwater in the University’s Lamont Towing Tank, enabling the algorithms to be optimised and the BCF motion to be comprehensively evaluated.

The project was supervised by Dr Richard Crowder, and the team benefited from support and expertise from Cambridge Circuit Company Ltd and Hammond Electronics Ltd, as well as from the state-of-the-art resources and technical staff in the ECS laboratories and workshops.

Speaking on behalf of the team, Arinze Ekwosimba summed up the experience: "The team found strength in efficiently dividing the project tasks equitably among members in a way that ensured smooth execution. Overall, we particularly enjoyed the underwater and biological challenges and were spurred to deliver something epic so as to end our degree studies on a high!"

Watch FISHER go through its paces in the Lamont Towing Tank.

"Robots have to act in real-time in a complex world and to do so with limited resources.â€? says Dr Zauner. “The popularity of mobile phones pushed the development of power-efficient computation and battery technology and thus created the conditions for the revolutionary developments in robotics we will certainly see in this decade."