Outstanding Engineering research paper is honoured

Elsevier, the publisher of the Journal of Sound and Vibration (JSV), has established the prestigious award to mark the life of Philip Doak, the journal's founding editor in 1964. He was Professor of Acoustics at Southampton and died in 2011. 

Neil's paper On Energy Harvesting from Ambient Vibration (JSV, 293,1/2, pp 409-425) has been cited more than 170 times since its publication in 2006. The journal article was inspired by speculative conversations with colleagues on how a stent used in cardiology to open arteries might in the future be designed to absorb energy from bloodflow and to use that energy to power a heart pacemaker. 

"This paper is one of the most important publications yet to emerge in this exciting and dynamic new field of research; the JSV is proud to have published it," says Professor Matthew Cartmell, from the University of Glasgow and JSV Editor-in-Chief. 

"I worked with Philip and knew him quite well," explains Neil. "We agreed that academic papers should be written at a level understandable by a postgraduate student. Too often, journal articles are inaccessible to researchers in other disciplines, and knowledge is not shared effectively." Neil has been named Head of Academic Affairs at the University of Southampton's Malaysia campus which will accept its first students in October 2012. It is part of the EduCity development in the Iskandar region. 

The Doak Prize presentation was made at the University of Southampton in the presence of Professor Jeremy Astley, Head of ISVR, and Christopher Greenwell representing Elsevier.