Toshiba’s Telecommunications Research Laboratory (TRL) in Bristol, which conducts advanced, world-leading work in mobile telephony, has appointed Professor Ian Craddock as managing director.
He replaces Professor Joe McGeehan, who founded Toshiba TRL in 1998, in that role. Professor McGeehan, one of the leading global figures in mobile communications, will now become senior general advisor to the company while continuing in his role as director of Bristol University’s Centre for Communications Research (CCR).
Professor Craddock is currently research director of the University of Bristol’s Merchant Venturers School of Engineering, which delivers world-class research through its three departments: computer science, electrical and electronic engineering and engineering mathematics.
He is also a member of the CCR and will divide his time between Toshiba and his existing research and teaching responsibilities at the university. His research interests include wideband microwave imaging, electromagnetic modelling, antenna design and medical applications of communications technology.
The laboratory, in Queen Square, undertakes research from blue-sky to highly-applied and is currently working on topics such as smart grid, 4G and 5G wireless communications, RF power amplifiers, wireless sensor networks and body-area networks.
The TRL has worked closely with the university on a range of major projects and also with colleagues in Toshiba’s development laboratories around the world, successfully transferring technology from research into real products.
To date it has funded projects worth more than £10m at the university, including two chairs and two lectureships.
Professor Nishan Canagarajah, dean of the university's Faculty of Engineering, said: “Toshiba has a long-standing strategic partnership with this university and Ian’s appointment is further confirmation of the international standing of the university’s research in the communications research field.”
Since its inception, the TRL has been at the cutting edge of research into technologies for next generation cellular, wireless local and personal area networks and reconfigurable device architectures and is now recognised worldwide as a centre of excellence.
Photo: Professor Ian Craddock, left, with the TRL's founder Professor Joe McGeehan
