Ten members of the Institution of Agricultural Engineers have been recognised for contributions to the land based sector at the Institution’s annual conference at Cranfield University.
This year’s Award of Merit was achieved by Tim Chamen and an Honorary Fellowship was bestowed on Professor Paul Miller.
"The Award of Merit and the Honorary Fellowship are the highest accolades the Institution can bestow and the most rigorous judging criteria are applied," said Chris Whetnall IAgrE’s Chief Executive.
Tim is a consulting engineer with a 25-year background of research into controlled traffic farming. He has been involved in soil cultivation and methods of avoiding compaction damage to soils for nearly 40 years.
"Tim’s strong commitment and belief in systems that can reduce soil compaction by managing traffic movement across fields has led to his established reputation in controlled traffic farming. This together with his broad experience of practical soil management and his wider involvement with engineers in the land based sector mean he is a very worthy recipient of The Award of Merit from the Institution," Chris added.
Professor Paul Miller is the author of many refereed and conference papers and is recognised as the leading international authority in his field. "He is a very versatile and well deserving candidate for this prestigious award who has made a very significant contribution to agricultural engineering at the highest level both in research and in the management of the profession," said Chris.
This year’s IAgrE Awards for Contribution to the Land Based Industries Sector went to Professor Mike O’Doherty and John Palmer. The awards are made to members who have made sustained contributions to the land based sector throughout their careers.
Mike (PhD, DSc, Fellow IAgrE, Member ASABE) has served in agricultural engineering research for over 40 years, the first 20 of which began at the National Institute of Agricultural Engineering in 1969 and the latter at Silsoe College of Cranfield University. On retirement he joined Silsoe College part time to teach engineering mathematics, instrumentation, research methods and helped in the supervision of over 30 PhD students. Mike continues as a visiting Professor at Cranfield University.
John Palmer is the training manager at Claas UK and has been involved in various aspects of engineering throughout his working career with his main involvement being agricultural service engineering. "The industry is indebted to people with enthusiasm and drive, who make things happen and John is a good example of such a person," said Alastair Tulloch MIAgrE, After Sales Manager & director of Claas UK.
The Michael Dwyer Memorial Prize which is presented to a mid-career engineer who has made outstanding progress in the agricultural engineering industry went to Andy Newbold.
Andy is event director for Fusion Events where he runs a portfolio of technical shows and exhibitions, including the Precision Farming Event, UK Grain, the Agricultural Buildings Show and the Farm Energy Event.
The Douglas Bomford Trust Award is presented to the author(s), at least one of whom is an Institution member, who demonstrates originality and technical excellence in a scientific paper published during the previous year in either the Institution Journal Landwards or Biosystems Engineering. Assessment criteria include: engineering content, potential for a practical and commercial use, relevance to the current problems and needs of industry as well as quality of presentation and the author’s authority in the subject material.
This year the award went to Professor Shane Ward. The papers ("Identification of high-injury-risk glass contaminants using simple shape measures of fragment outlines" ) and "Ranking of risk of injury from glass contaminants using Fourier shape measures of fragment outlines" were published in Biosystems Engineering.
Shane, a Professor of Biosystems Engineering at UCD University College Dublin and IAgrE member, accepted the award on behalf of colleagues Ayalew and Holden.
This year’s Johnson New Holland Trophy Award winner is Rhys Morgan of Harper Adams University College. The award is presented annually with the object of encouraging and recognising innovation by younger students, to the best final year project submitted by a student of group of students as part of a First Degree, Higher National Diploma or Higher National Certificate course in Agricultural Engineering.
Rhys’s paper was entitled "The design and development of an automatic park brake system for a 7000 JCB Series Fastrac."
