Richard Brown

Prof Brown is the Director of the Centre and responsible overall for its mission to perform the long-term, fundamental engineering research that is required to realise the space access and air transport systems of the future. His particular interests lie in integrating the various diverse aspects of the field in order to achieve significant reductions in the cost of access to space and in the time taken by aircraft to travel over inter-continental distances. He is interested in understanding how the design of high-performance air-space vehicles influences their aero-thermodynamics, structures, flight mechanics and control, and how optimal vehicle performance can be achieved safely and reliably while minimising cost and environmental impact. He is also interested in the effect of future air-space transportation systems on society and in the development of the operational standards and air-traffic control procedures that will be needed to support the economic operation of such vehicles within the future air transport infrastructure. He holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and is currently an Associate Editor with responsibility for high-speed flow and space transport for the Aeronautical Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society. He is also UK representative on the Technical Committee for the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics International Space Planes and Hypersonics Systems and Technologies Conference.