Simon Rowland

Biography

I joined Manchester University in 2003 but started my career in industrial Research and Development of materials and reliability assessment, Working for STC, BICC, and Corning Cables, I progressed through the management of R&D and moved into manufacturing and general management before joining academia. I am Professor of Electrical Materials, and have been Head of School since 2015. 

My industrial and academic careers have mainly been focused on the development and application of electrical insulating materials and systems. One particular area of interest has been outdoor insulation. I have also worked in the area of asset management techniques for power system assets. I have 13 patents, most of which are focused on overhead line technology, and over 100 refereed Journal or Conference publications (link). Present work is focused on understanding the role of interfaces in solid insulation systems. This work takes place in The National Grid HV Laboratory at the University of Manchester which is the UK’s largest HV laboratory (link). Much of my work is funded by UK Utilities such as National Grid and SSE, and by EPSRC. I have worked on and lead a number of large collaborative programs, presently including as Project Manager of an EPSRC Grand Challenge: ‘Top and Tail Transformation’ consisting of 9 universities. I am also Manchester’s lead for EPSRC’s Supergen HubNet project which aims to coordinate UK research thinking in power networks. I am also Director of the award winning spinout company Arago Technology.

I am a Fellow of the IEEE and a past President of the IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society. I am also a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and the IET.

Qualifications

BSc, PhD, CEng, FHEA, FIET, FInstP, FIEEE