Mechanical engineer who became President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and whose pioneering work on reducing emissions in the aeronautics and industrial gas turbine industries has paved the way for quieter and more environmentally friendly aviation and power.

In 2015 she was appointed to the Order of Merit, one of only five engineers from a total of 201 appointees since instigation of the Order in 1902.

City of London Connections

Non Executive Director Smiths Group (2018- )

Non-Executive Director BP (2012-2021)

Non-Executive Member of the Board of UK Government’s Department of Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) (2014-16) and of the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) (2017-18)

Member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science & Technology (2014-19)

Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Engineers (2002- )

Contribution to Engineering

Ann Dowling’s research aims to enable society to have power and mobility without environmental damage or excessive noise. There are two main themes, one associated with efficient, low-emission combustion, and the second with understanding, modelling and reducing the noise from cars, helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft and domestic appliances such as vacuum cleaners and fans.

The drive for low emissions is causing aero and industrial gas turbine combustors to operate on the verge of instability.  Ann Dowling is a leading authority on developments that are enabling the control of unstable combustion systems in both aeronautics and power generation.

In recent years, Ann Dowling’s research on aircraft noise has concentrated particularly on jet noise, a major noise source at take-off. Her group has developed models to predict the noise and investigate and optimise various mitigation techniques. The group has also investigated combustion noise, which is of increasing importance in the external noise from aircraft. Techniques have been developed to reduce noise in a wide range of applications.

Legacy

Ann Dowling (pictured here at her induction to the City of London Engineering Hall of Fame with Lord Mayor Michael Mainelli) is a world authority on combustion and acoustics. She was the first woman to be President of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2014-19) and the first woman engineer to join the Order of Merit. She is currently a Deputy Vice Chancellor and an Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Cambridge. She was appointed CBE in 2002, and DBE in 2007.

Foreign Member of the US and Chinese National Academies of Engineering and of the French Academy of Sciences.

Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Institution of Engineering Designers and the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and of the Institute of Acoustics.

Awarded the James Watt International Gold Medal by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 2016, and the Royal Medal by the Royal Society in 2019.

Honorary Doctorates from 21 universities including Oxford University, Imperial College London, Trinity College Dublin, University of Glasgow, KTH Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm and McGill University Canada.

References and Further Reading

Acoustic analysis of gas turbine combustors Ann P Dowling and Simon R Stow, 2003.  AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power, 19, 751-764.

Feedback control of combustion oscillations, Ann P Dowling and Aimee S Morgans, 2005, Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, 37, 151-182.

Transonic helicopter noise, A S Morgans; S A Karabasov, A P Dowling and T P Hynes, 2005, AIAA Journal, 43, 1512-1524.

Tyre/road interaction noise – Numerical noise prediction of a patterned tyre on a rough road surface, D J O’Boy and A P Dowling, 2009, Journal of Sound and Vibration, 323, 270-291.

Jet noise: Acoustic analogy informed by Large Eddy Simulation, S A Karabasov, M Z Afsar, T P Hynes, A P Dowling, W A McMullan, C D Pokora, G J Page and J J McGuirk, 2010, AIAA Journal, 48, 1312-1325.

Combustion Noise, Ann P. Dowling and Yasser Mahmoudi, 2015, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 35, 65-100.

Prediction of installed jet noise, B. Lyu, A. P. Dowling and I. Naqavi, 2016, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 811, 234–268.

Low-order modeling of combustion noise in an aero-engine: the effect of entropy dispersion, Yasser Mahmoudi, Andrea Giusti, Epaminondas Mastorakos and Ann P Dowling, 2018, ASME Journal of Engineering for gas turbines and power, 140, 011502.

Contribution to Sustainable Development Goals

The guiding principle of Dame Ann Dowling’s research has been the drive to find successful approaches to lower emissions in the aeronautics and energy industries, hence SDG 13 (Climate Action). She has also had a direct impact on SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 8 (Economic Growth), and SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, Infrastructure).