Prof. David Knowles
Monday, 4 March 2024
Professor David Knowles joined the Henry Royce Institute as its CEO in early 2019, bringing with him a wealth of experience from senior roles in both academia and industry in the areas of materials and structural integrity. David is particularly experienced in leading the collaboration between higher education and industry, to accelerate energy sector-related research, knowledge transfer and implementation.
David is a Fellow of the Royal Academy, a Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Bristol University and was Co-Director of the South-West Nuclear Hub and Atkins Fellow. Through his career he has lead materials research at Shell Global Solutions, served as CTO at Quest Integrity (operating throughout Australasia and SE Asia) and lectured at Cambridge University; collaborating with Rolls-Royce as Assistant Director of their Ni-alloy UTC.
In recent years David has led industrial projects related to design and assessment of renewable energy offshore structures, oil and gas and nuclear plant. He holds and participates in several EPSRC/Innovate grants and is the PI on ‘SINDRI Prosperity Partnership’ which is developing cutting-edge digital technology for nuclear plant design and assessment.