Professor Patrick Dowling is an internationally renowned engineer, scholar and educationalist.

A native of Dublin, he graduated from University College Dublin in 1960 with a first class honours degree in civil engineering and was placed first in order of merit.  Much of his career was spent at Imperial College London where he held a chair in Structural Engineering for 15 years and led a world class Department and a distinguished research team.

From 1994 - 2005 he was Vice-Chancellor (President) and Chief Executive of the University of Surrey.  During this time he continued to publish his research and returned as research active in the Research Assessment Exercise in UK universities.

He has made seminal contributions to the understanding, behaviour and design of steel structures and is the author of some 250 papers and the editor of 6 books in that area.  He is also the founding editor of the Journal of Constructional Steel Research, now in its 60th Volume.

At the time of his election to the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1981, he was the youngest person ever so honoured.  His citation was for outstanding contributions to structural engineering.  Subsequently he was elected to the Royal Society for his distinguished contributions to engineering and engineering science.

In recognition of his scholarly work, he has received Honorary Doctorates from the National University of Ireland (LLD), University of Ulster (DSc), University of Vilnius (ScD); Fellowships from Imperial College (FIC) and from City and Guilds (FCGI) and numerous medals and awards from professional institutions.

Over the past decade his work has been recognised by election to the National Engineering Academies of Korea, Ireland, Argentina and Serbia and to the Scientific Academy of Argentina.  Other international recognition of his work has been the award of the Gustave Trasenster Medal from the University of Liège in Belgium, Honorary Professorship of the University of Arequipa in Peru and Fellowships of overseas national institutions in Singapore and the United States.

Patrick Dowling has held positions of President of the Institution of Structural Engineers, Chairman of the UK’s Engineering Council, Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Chairman of the Steel Construction Institute, President of the Association for Science Education and President of City and Guilds College Association.