Professor Colin Cunningham
BSc, MSc, CEng, FIET, FInstP, FSPIE
Director, UK ELT Programme
Graduated from Imperial College in 1974 in Electrical Engineering (2.1). 1974-78 Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and 1978-86 Freshwater Biological Association’s Windermere Laboratory (NERC) working on biological and environmental instrumentation. MSc in Biophysics and Bioengineering (Chelsea College) 1978. 1986-87 Robertson Research International (N.Wales) designing geological bore-hole logging equipment. 1987 Royal Observatory Edinburgh: Project Manager and Project Engineer for the highly successful SCUBA bolometer array camera. Systems Engineer for the Herschel Space Observatory SPIRE Instrument from 1997-2001. One of three founding Directors of the Smart Optics Faraday Partnership. Member the management teams for the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance ‘Technology for Experimental and Observational Physics in Scotland’ programme, and the Edinburgh Research Partnership’s ‘Institute for Integrated Systems’. Associate member of the Institute of Physics Optics and Photonics Division Committee. Chair of the Framework & Opticon Key Technologies Network, and PI of the Opticon Smart Instrument Technologies Joint Research Activity. PI of the UK Extremely Large Telescopes R&D Programme. Symposium chair for the 2006 SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation symposium. Member of the ESO ELT Science and Engineering working group. Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the IET, the InstP and SPIE, and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Glasgow University. Through the Edinburgh Research Partnership, he is an Honorary Professor in both the University of Edinburgh School of Engineering and Electronics and Heriot Watt University's School of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
Applications of Astronomy
13-15 October 2010
This conference will give an overview of technologies and techniques developed in astronomy, highlight the solutions they offer for solving commercially relevant issues, and provide information and guidance on how academics and industry can collaborate to develop future applications.