Professor Dame Julia King, Baroness Brown of Cambridge DBE FREng FRS, has been appointed as the new President of The Welding Institute.

Appointed by The Welding Institute Council on 28 September 2022, she is the first female president appointed since the formation of The Institute nearly one hundred years ago back in 1923.

Baroness Brown has achieved many accolades in her lifetime including graduating from the University of Cambridge with an MA in Natural Sciences and a PhD in Fracture Mechanics. She has also been awarded the Grunfeld, John Collier, Lunar Society, Constance Tipper, Bengough, Kelvin and Leonardo da Vinci medals; as well as the Erna Hamburger Prize and the 2012 President's Prize of the Engineering Professors' Council.  In addition, she has been involved in chairing the Science and Technology Select Committee, the Carbon Trust, STEM Learning Ltd and the Adaptation Committee of Climate Change Committee.

Her preceding roles include a decade spent as the Vice-Chancellor of Aston University, being the Principal of the Engineering Faculty at Imperial College, London, and a multitude of senior business and engineering posts at Rolls-Royce plc.

Baroness Brown has published over 160 papers on fatigue and fracture in structural materials and on developments in aerospace and marine propulsion technologies. Additionally, she is the holder of 10 honorary degrees and is an honorary Fellow of IoMMM, IET, the British Science Association, the Energy Institute and the Society for the Environment.

Julia King was announced as a life peer in the House of Lords on 13 October 2015 by the House of Lords Appointments Commission, with her title officially gazetted as Baroness Brown of Cambridge on 30 October 2015.

Speaking on the appointment, TWI CEO Aamir Khalid said, “We are delighted to welcome Baroness Brown as the new President of The Welding Institute, where her wealth of experience and standing in the industrial community speaks for itself.”

The Welding Institute is pleased to welcome Professor Dame Julia King, Baroness Brown’s new presidency.