Professor Sir John O'Reilly

Chair
Science and Engineering Advisory Council (SEAC)
A*STAR

Professor Sir John O’Reilly is Chairman of NICC (Standards) Ltd., a Director of ERA Foundation Ltd and a Royal Commissioner for the Exhibition of 1851. He served as Director General, Knowledge and Innovation for the UK government (2013-2015), as Vice-Chancellor of Cranfield University, (2006-2013) and as Chief Executive of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (2001-2006). He has held appointments in industry (Ultra Electronics, British Telecom and in the SME sector with IDB Ltd and CAST Ltd), in government research (Royal Radar Establishment, Post Office Research Centre) and in academia (Essex, Bangor, University College London (UCL) and currently Royal Academy of Engineering Industrial Visiting Professor supporting the University of Huddersfield and a Visiting Professor at UCL).

In the wider international arena, he chairs the external review committee for the Carnegie Mellon University Portugal programme in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), serves on the Board of Khalifa University in UAE, on the panel for Quality Assessment Framework for Universities for the Ministry of Education in Singapore and is a Board Member of the Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore.

A Chartered Engineer, Professor O’Reilly is a Fellow and former member of Council of the Royal Academy of Engineering, an International Fellow of Académie Hassan II des Sciences et Techniques and of Academia das Ciencias de Lisbon, a former President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and of EUREL, the Confederation of European Professional Electrical Engineering Societies. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, an Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, holds honorary doctorates/Fellowships from the universities of Essex, Bangor, Huddersfield and UCL, the J. J. Thomson Medal of the IEE for ‘distinguished contributions to electronic engineering’ and the Ciencia (Science) Medal from the government of Portugal. He received a knighthood for contributions to science conferred by Her Majesty the Queen in 2007 and the Honorary Citizen Award, conferred by the President of Singapore, in 2019.