Role

Kevin Smith leads the Materials Division at NPL, which covers activity in research for advanced processing and performance of materials, enabling improved materials selection, lifetime management and support of emerging technologies. The division has around 100 scientists and a large number of additional students and guest workers.

Biography

Kevin Smith received a BSc (Hons) degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 1980 from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). After university he joined GEC Traction working on the design of electric motors for traction systems before designing equipment for electro-surgery in a Hawker Siddeley Medical Electronics company.

Kevin joined Oxford Instruments in 1985 working on the design of special magnet and cryogenic systems for high energy physics. Over the next 23 years, Kevin held a range of engineering and then senior management jobs in the company looking after engineering, new product development and operations for a range of high technology product areas-from dilution refrigerators, high field NMR magnets, synchrotrons, cyclotrons through to special magnets for space. Kevin obtained a#160;Diploma in Management Studies from the Open University Business School in June 1995.

More recently, Kevin worked as Program Director at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida, on large very high field magnets for basic research. In 2010 he returned to the UK and, after a period doing engineering and project management consultancy work, he took a role as Engineering Director for a subsidiary of SPX, a global instrumentation company based in Bristol that designs equipment for the location and management of underground assets - using a range of high sensitivity magnetic sensors.

Contact details

Email: kevin.smith@npl.co.uk
Tel: 020 8943 6101