Feature
FROM UNDERGRAD TO CBE – AND BEYOND Since joining the University of Southampton in the early ‘70s as a mechanical engineering undergraduate, Professor Philip Nelson’s long and distinguished career features major milestones in both academia and industry.
From Director of the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR), to Pro ViceChancellor for Research and Enterprise, to CEO of EPSRC, and even lunch with the Queen – Professor Philip Nelson has a wealth of career highlights. Being made a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) by the Queen in 2018 for his services to UK Engineering and Science – and meeting Sir Paul McCartney in the process – is also up there with the top moments. “Sir Paul McCartney was honoured at the same time as me,” he said. “It was listening to his music that first got me interested in sound, so it was great to talk to him about his own career.”
Studying sound Engineering – acoustics, in particular – has been Philip’s passion since he came to Southampton in 1971. He had a job with a small company in Colchester called Sound Attenuators Ltd, which made silencers for fans. The company sponsored Philip to study at Southampton due to the University’s renowned expertise in sound and vibration at the ISVR, which was founded in 1963. Philip studied aerodynamic sound for his PhD, whilst simultaneously working for Sound Attenuators Ltd. He then worked for the company for four years before returning to Southampton as a lecturer.
It wasn’t the first time Philip, Professor of Acoustics, met the Queen. In 2017, when he was CEO and Deputy Chair of EPSRC, he was invited to dine with the Queen and and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, at Buckingham Palace.
“Professor Stephen Elliott and I really benefitted from a new SERC – now EPSRC – Special Replacement Scheme,” said Philip. “I got into an academic career a lot more easily than perhaps it is these days, I was very lucky.
“My office took a call and said, ‘I’m not sure if this is for real, but you’re invited to lunch at the palace’,” he recalled. “It was great fun. I sat next to the Duke, who was one of the main proponents of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and it was fantastic talking to him about the discipline.”
“Steve and I worked together on an idea to cancel out sound with sound – using one noise to cancel out another – on propeller aircraft, which proved successful. Nowadays there are a couple of thousand aircraft with sound cancellers on, largely thanks to Steve’s efforts.”
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The pair authored a book, Active Control of Sound, in 1992 and, in the same year, they jointly won the Tyndall Medal for achievement and services in the field of acoustics from the Institute of Acoustics. In 1999, the Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre opened, and Philip was its first Director. He was also Director of the ISVR from 2000 to 2005. From Southampton to national Philip was Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise from 2005 to 2013, leading Southampton’s submission to the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise and the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF), and chaired the General Engineering sub-panel for REF 2014. “I was hugely proud of what we achieved at Southampton with each REF – it’s a huge job,” he said. As Pro Vice-Chancellor, he promoted interdisciplinary working by forming University Strategic Research Groups, and then led the formation of the Institute for Life Sciences, the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute and the Web Science Institute. He also helped to set up the Science and Engineering South Consortium, with a
