Professor John Perkins took up his appointment as Provost of Masdar Institute of Science and Technology on June 1st, 2009. Before that, in April of 2004, he joined the newly created University of Manchester.  This institution was established following the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST. He was Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences at The University of Manchester, as well as directing the Dalton Nuclear Institute, until May 2009.  Prior to that, he was Principal of the Faculty of Engineering and Courtaulds Professor of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College, London.

John has industrial experience with Shell and ICI (in the UK and Australia). He has acted as a consultant in process control and process modelling and simulation for a number of companies around the world. He is the author of a number of authoritative reports and has managed several industrial consortia projects aimed at benchmarking and introducing advanced control methods into industrial practice.

John’s academic career spans periods at Cambridge University, the University of Sydney, Imperial College as well as Manchester. His research interests cover a number of facets of process systems, including process design, process control and process modelling and dynamic simulation. 

John is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, where he also serves as Vice-President, the Royal Society of Arts, the City and Guilds of London Institute, the Institution of Chemical Engineers and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. He is a Chartered Engineer, a Chartered Mathematician and a Chartered Scientist.

John Perkins was awarded a CBE in the 2007 New Honours list for services to science and engineering.