It has been nice to see so many of our new students around campus this week. Many thanks to everyone across our academic and PS teams who have been so heavily involved in planning and running the activities and events that have taken place around Welcome Week for our UG and PG programmes. I know the students and PGRs really appreciate it.
Our first departmental meeting of the semester and the social event after both seemed to be a great success. I suspect that this will be the model we adopt going forwards. The Owls appeared happy too.
Steve Furber is Retiring
September 30th will mark the retirement of Steve Furber after 30+ years at the University of Manchester. Steve’s contributions to the world of computing, in general, and to our own department, in particular, are immeasurable. To mark his retirement, we’d like to invite you all to an informal leaving bash for Steve on September 27th at 3PM in the Common Room where we will be serving the finest chocolate cakes available to humanity (or, at least, to University catering). If you know of anyone no longer in the department who would like to attend Steve’s leaving ‘do’, please invite them!
The link to Steve’s card is here: https://viing.com/v/steve-furbers-retirement
We’ve also opened a collection for Steve’s nominated charity, Hope for Justice, which you can donate to here: https://hopeforjustice.org/donate/
Additionally, on January 12th we will be holding a Festschrift for Steve. I am sure it will be an interesting and enjoyable event celebrating Steve’s legacy. Many thanks to Gavin for leading on this. Please mark it in you diaries.
Congratulations to Alex Frangi
Many congratulations to Alex who is one of 73 new Fellows in the field of engineering and technology elected by the Royal Academy of Engineering at its AGM on 19 September.
The group consists of 60 Fellows, eight International Fellows and five Honorary Fellows, each of whom has made exceptional contributions to their own sector, pioneering new innovations, leading progress in business or academia, providing high-level advice to government, or promoting wider understanding of engineering and technology.