Speakers

Invited Speakers

INCOSE 99 was honoured to have four speakers who accepted our invitation to share their views with us and to challenge our thinking as we enter the 21st century. These were:

Keynote Speaker: Tuesday, 8th June	Sir Robert May
Banquet Speaker: Wednesday, 9th June	Laurie Taylor
Featured Speaker: Thursday, 10th June	Professor Joan Solomon
Featured Speaker: Thursday, 10th June	Professor Philip M’Pherson

Keynote Speaker
Tuesday, 8th June

Sir Robert May,
Chief Scientific Advisor to the Cabinet Office

Sir Robert May AC FRS is the chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and Head of the Office of Science and Technology. He is responsible for advising the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Office on scientific and technological issues, and for fostering science, engineering and technology across Whitehall.

In this role, he leads the Foresight programme which is creating strategy for investment in Research and Development across a wide range of national endeavors, bringing together government, academia and industry. Last year he launched a number of reports on key subjects, including one on Systems Engineering.

His main research has been in theoretical analysis of the dynamics of populations, communities and ecosystems. An Australian by birth, he holds numerous degrees and awards from Universities and academies world-wide.

Banquet Speaker Wednesday, 9th June	Laurie Taylor
Laurie Taylor is most known for his popular radio programmes and TV appearances. He writes and presents The Afternoon Shift , and the highly praised Speaking as an Expert series on Radio 4and for many years was a leading contributor to Stop The Week. Recent TV appearances include Did You see, The South Bank Show, The Late Show, Everyman, the Media show, Don’t Quote me, Newsnight, Right to Reply and Without Walls.
Laurie is also visiting Professor in the department of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck College, University of London. He holds honorary degrees from the University of Nottingham and the University of Central England. He was made a Fellow of Birkbeck College in 1996. His career also includes industrial Sales, Teaching and Professional Acting. He is the author of fourteen books on motivation, change and identity in the modern world, and regularly writes for The New Statesman, and The Times Higher Educational Supplement. Laurie is also a contributor to The Times, The London Evening Standard, The Independent, The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail.

Featured Speaker Thursday, 10th June	Professor Joan Solomon Centre for Science Education, The Open University
Joan Solomon has been a secondary school Physics teacher, an author and innovator of new teaching materials with a social and technological flavour, a teacher of Design and Technology in a middle school, a trainer of science teachers, a lecturer in Physics Education at Oxford University and, more recently, a prolific and well known educational researcher. In addition to her post at the Open University, she is also visiting professor at Kings College London, and the University of Oporto, Portugal. She is the founder and co-ordinator of the Internet-based Virtual Association of European Science Teachers (VAEST). Professor Solomon’s other interests include the public understanding of science, teaching about the nature of science and technology, and new school-based vocational courses. In all these areas she has carried out valuable commissioned research.
Featured Speaker Thursday, 10th June	Professor Philip M’Pherson Emeritus Professor of Systems Engineering and Management, City University, London, and Principal Consultant for The Systems and Value Consultancy
Philip M’Pherson began to think of himself as a systems engineer back in 1954/5 when, as an officer in the Royal Navy, he was working at MIT on inertial navigation. He retired from the Navy in 1959 as a Lieutenant-Commander on his appointment to the UK Atomic Energy Authority to found and head a new group to deal with the dynamics and control of prototype nuclear power reactors. He left the UKEAE on his election as a fellow of St. Johns College, Oxford, but he moved on in 1967 to the new City University, London, to launch a department that would teach and research in the then academically suspect disciplines of Systems Science and Systems Engineering. Philip M’Pherson retired early from the University (1987) to concentrate on consultancy. He had always been intrigued by systems engineering as a whole-process and with cost-effectiveness analysis in particular. After a few years private development, the Inclusive Value Manager (IVM) was launched as a generic methodology for valid value measurement. It is now employed by many corporate clients measuring their value, cost effectiveness, and intellectual capital.. Philip has degrees from MIT and Oxford University, is a Chartered Engineer, and fellow of the IEE.