Michael Thomas Wright PhD,

FREng Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) is an award and Scholarship, fellowship for engineers who are recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering as being the best and brightest engineers, inventors and technologists in the UK a ...

, FIEE, FIMechE, CMath, FIMA, CIMgt (11 April 1947 – 10 January 2015) was a British academic who was the Vice-Chancellor of

Aston University Aston University (abbreviated as ''Aston''. for post-nominals) is a public research university situated in the city centre of Birmingham, England. Aston began as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School in 1895, evolving into the UK's first c ...

between 1996 and 2006.

Life

Wright was born 11 April 1947 and attended

Sheldon Heath School King Edward VI Sheldon Heath Academy is a mixed secondary school and sixth form located in the Sheldon area of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Previously known as Sheldon Heath School, the school gained specialist status as an A ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

.Debretts People of Today
He took an apprenticeship then studied

Electrical Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

at Aston University, gaining a first class degree in 1969, and a PhD in 1972. Working in industry as an engineer, he rose to become director of several companies and returned as Professor of

Mechanical Engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

in 1990. He was later Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor, between 1994-1996, becoming Vice-Chancellor in 1996 for ten years. He retired in 2006 and died of cancer 10 January 2015.www.aston.ac.uk
news release 20 Jan 2015 He was survived by his wife and daughter.Birmingham Mail
13 Jan 2015 "Aston University stalwart Professor Michael Wright dies, aged 67"

Honours

FIEE 1981; FREng 1988; FIMechE 1989; FRSA 1989; CMath 1994; FIMA 1994; CCMI 1997. He received prizes for his published academic work: IEE Student Paper Award 1970, IEEE Petrochemical Industry Author Award 1981, IEE Power Division Premium for published work 1983.

References

External links

Aston University
1947 births 2015 deaths Senior Members of the IEEE Vice-Chancellors of Aston University Academics of Aston University British mechanical engineers Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellows of the Institution of Electrical Engineers Fellows of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Fellows of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications {{UK-academic-bio-stub