All of these events and activities are made possible by the efforts of a dedicated group of volunteers. If you would like to know more about our committees, or would like to be a volunteer for us, please get in touch with any of the volunteers listed here.
Dr Crinela Pislaru - Chairman
Dr Crinela Pislaru has over 20 years’ experience of teaching and research in UK Universities. Her expertise is on Engineering education and control engineering with applications in rail industry and manufacturing industry. She was awarded the status of Chartered Engineer (CEng) and Fellowship of Higher Education Academy (FHEA) as recognition of her high level of competence and ongoing commitment to professionalism.
Dr Crinela Pislaru has been conducting research on several EU projects in collaboration with the Institute of Railway Research at the University of Huddersfield:
- Optimisation of Maintenance, Allocation and Inspection of Railway Networks (AUTOMAIN);
- Sustainable Freight Railway (SUSTRAIL)
- Towards an Affordable, Resilient and Innovative European Railway System (CAPACITY 4 RAIL).
Also she is the author of over 100 refereed journal and conference publications in the field of energy efficiency of intelligent sustainable autonomous rail vehicles; real time traction control using hardware-in-the-loop (HIL); multibody non-linear system dynamics; rail vehicle-track interaction and damage mechanisms; integrated system analysis for controlled rail vehicles; intelligent transportation systems; expert systems; mechatronics, e-learning and Engineering education.
Dr Crinela Pislaru is also a reviewer for several internationally leading journals and reviewer of books, EPSRC projects, external examiner for PhD and MSc degrees.
With this experience, Crinela is keen to promote engineering as an aspirational career for women and young people across the UK. She is a firm believer in collaboration and actively promotes the IET’s Horizontal Innovation program as a means to solve some of society’s biggest challenges.
LinkedIn webpage - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/crinela-pislaru-79152115
Phillip Corner - Secretary
Phillip is the honorary secretary of the West Yorkshire local network committee and a representative for industry. An industrial cyber security engineer with over a decade of experience in engineering and computing, he heads the industrial cyber security projects team at Cougar Automation, an automation systems integrator. He joined Cougar in 2018 from the MoD having served as a systems engineer officer in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and is a certificated marine electro-technical officer. A multi-skilled engineer, his experience includes a number of years as a data-centre systems analyst, he holds qualifications in information technology, electrical and electronic engineering, and cyber security and is currently also a post-graduate student reading a master of science degree at the University of Bradford.
Bill Plews - Treasurer
Simon Dobson - School Liaison Officer
Brian Firth - Senior Member and Manufacturing Representative
Jeff Utley MBE - Student Prizes Co-ordinator
In 2020 Jeff will have completed 50 years continuous service on Yorkshire regional committees of the Institution and its antecedents.
Jeff began his years of service when, in January 1970, he helped form the then Leeds Branch (later renamed West Yorkshire Section) of the Junior Institution of Engineers (JIE). Institution name changes and mergers followed – The JIE becoming the Institution of General Technician Engineers (IGTechE), then changed to The Institution of Mechanical and General Technician Engineers (IMGTechE); The Institution of Mechanical Incorporated Engineers (IMechIE); The Institution of Incorporated Engineers (IIE) and finally (?) to today’s Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).
Over the years Jeff has served as Hon.Secretary; Hon.Treasurer; Vice Chairman and Branch or Section Chairman at least six times. He was the first Chairman of the IET West Yorkshire Local Network (WYLN) and was also Minute Secretary for Yorkshire and The Humber Regional Network (Y&HRN) for many years. As well as work for Yorkshire committees, he has been on National committees – Finance & General Purposes; Membership; Benevolent Fund (Chairman for a time); Member of Council and served for one year as Chairman of the Institution. He has also represented the Institution at meetings of The Engineering Council; ECRO and the West Yorkshire Professional Organisations Association (WYPOA).
As part of his Institution work Jeff has organised dozens of lectures and visits, plus has been part of the team which organise the Annual Yorkshire Region Prestige Lecture. Jeff too has written and delivered technical papers and has received five Institution awards and prizes – including two gold medals.
In 2015 Jeff was awarded an MBE for services to engineering in Yorkshire.
Jeff currently serves on the WYLN as Student Prize Co-ordinator and Jeff hopes to help encourage younger and newer members to lead the Institution into the future – hoping that perhaps his knowledge and experience will be helpful. He has enjoyed a continual learning curve plus meeting
John Bregazzi - Foothold (The IET benevolent fund)
Richard Etheridge - Senior Member Event Co-ordinator
Dr Sadegh Aziz - Academic Representative
Dr Sadegh Azizi is a Lecturer in Smart Energy Systems at the University of Leeds and an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems (IJEPES). From June 2016 to January 2019, he was with The University of Manchester as a Postdoctoral Researcher working on the EU H2020 MIGRATE project, in collaboration with a great number of European Transmission System Operators (TSOs). He was a visiting researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (2014-2015) and has been collaborating with the Distributed Electrical Systems Laboratory at EPFL since then.
Prior to joining academia, he was active in the industry for several years conducting corporate research and consulting activities for electricity system operators and consultancy companies. He has worked on many projects from inception to delivering professional reports as well as publications in leading journals in collaboration with researchers/engineers of different affiliations worldwide.
Matthew Buckley - Academic Representative
Dr Paul Steenson - Academic Representative
Dr David Love - Academic Representative
Oliver Clarke - Community Administrator
Oliver is the community administrator for the West Yorkshire Local Network. As community administrator Oliver updates the local network web pages and the events pages on the IET site. Oliver also helps to arrange IET events in the power group.
Oliver is an Electrical Engineer working in the Energy and Resources group at Arup in Leeds. He joined Arup in 2012 after graduating from Sheffield Univeristy with a MEng in Electrical Engineering.
Mark Thompson - Power Group Representative
Bob Bennett - Senior Members Representative
Zeshaan Iqbal - Young Professional
Updated 15th June 2020