Prof Sarah Spurgeon

Biography

Professor Sarah Spurgeon received B.Sc. and D.Phil. degrees from the University of York, York, U.K., in 1985 and 1988, respectively.  She has held previous academic positions at the University of Loughborough, the University of Leicester and the University of Kent in the UK. She was appointed as Professor of Engineering at the University of Leicester in 2002 and was Head of their Department of Engineering from 2006-2008. She was Professor of Control Engineering and Head of the School of Engineering and Digital Arts at the University of Kent from 2008-2016.  She is currently Head of Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering and Professor of Control Engineering at UCL.

Sarah Spurgeon has previously chaired the IEEE Technical Committee on Variable Structure and Sliding Mode Control and the UK Automatic Control Council, the national member organisation of the International Federation of Automatic Control. She was an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for the Control Systems Society for the period 2011-2014 and has also Chaired the Ingenious Panel of the Royal Academy of Engineering which, supported by BIS, prioritised funding for public engagement projects which put engineering at the heart of society.  She was President of the Institute of Measurement and Control (2015-16) and an independent member of the Defence Scientific Advisory Council (DSAC) providing independent advice to the Secretary of State for Defence on matters of concern to the Ministry of Defence in the fields of Science, Engineering, Technology and Analysis (SETA) (2011-2017). 

She is currently President of the Engineering Professors Council (EPC). She is a Board member of both EngineeringUK as well as Dstl. In the later role she is Chair of the External Review College for Dstl.  Internationally, she is a member of IFAC Council for the period 2014-2017 and is the UK representative on the General Assembly of the European Control Association.