QEPrize Trustee receives the Order of Merit from HM The Queen

Professor Dame Ann Dowling OM DBE FREng FRS, Trustee of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation and President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, yesterday formally joined the highly prestigious Order of Merit. She received the honour at Buckingham Palace during a private audience with Her Majesty The Queen.

Dame Ann is the first female engineer to join the Order of Merit (OM), which only has 24 living members at any time. She is only the tenth woman in over 100 years to join the OM, following in the footsteps of some uniquely accomplished women from politics, science and the arts:

Florence Nightingale OM RRC – social reformer and statistician

Professor Dorothy Hodgkin OM FRS – Nobel Prize winning chemist

Dame Veronica Wedgwood OM DBE FBA - historian

Mother Theresa Hon OM MC – missionary and humanitarian

Dame Cicely Saunders OM DBE FRCS FRCP FRCN – nurse, social worker and physician

Baroness Thatcher LG OM PC FRS – Prime Minister

Dame Joan Sutherland OM AC DBE – opera singer

Dame Ninette de Valois OM CH DBE – ballet dancer and choreographer

Baroness Boothroyd OM PC – Speaker of the House of Commons

Founded in 1902 by King Edward VII, the Order of Merit is a personal gift of the sovereign and recognises exceptional service towards the advancement of the arts, learning, literature and science.

A trustee of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation since 2014, Dame Ann Dowling is Professor of Mechanical of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, where she served as Head of the Department of Engineering from 2009-14 and is currently a Deputy Vice-Chancellor. As a world authority on combustion and acoustics, she is admitted to the Order of Merit for her exceptional service in advancing the field of mechanical engineering, with almost 40 years of research on aeronautics and energy, particularly in reducing aircraft noise and pollutants from combustion.

Dame Ann says: “I was surprised and delighted to be appointed to the Order of Merit. It is a particular pleasure to share the honour today of being appointed along with Lord Darzi and Sir James Dyson, who are also distinguished Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering. The variety of our work, united by the common thread of engineering, demonstrates the vital role of this field in our modern society.

"It has been an immense privilege today to meet Her Majesty The Queen. I feel very humbled to receive such a special honour that has been awarded to so many wonderfully talented people over the years."