Professor Joe McGeehan CBE

Joe McGeehan graduated from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Liverpool in 1967 and undertook research in negative ion molecule reactions in heavily ionised gases for the degree of PhD. He then joined the technical staff of the Allen Clark Research Centre, the Plessey Company, where he conducted research in to the physics and technology of compound semiconductors such as GaAs and their application to radar, telecommunications and ultra-high-speed digital electronics (>10GBps). On moving to Bath University in 1972, he initiated research into spectrum and power efficient mobile communication technologies and systems and his early work was adopted as the North American 220MHz narrowband mobile radio standard. In 1984, he was appointed to the first Chair in Communications Engineering at Bristol University where he established the world-famous Centre for Communications Research (CCR). Here he pioneered fundamental R&D that led to the technology and standards of systems such as EDGE, 3G, 4G, WiFi, Smart Antennas and Software Defined Radio (SDR). He has successfully launched several start-ups and was for 10 years, a Board member of Renishaw plc the last 4 years as SID and worked with the Director of Engineering to create and launch the Medical Systems Division. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1993 and awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2003 for services to the communications industry. He is Emeritus Professor of Communications Engineering at Bristol and was in 1998 appointed founding MD of Toshiba Research Europe in Bristol. Since 2011, he has been Senior General Advisor to Toshiba Corporation (Japan). In 2011 he was made one of the founding industrial members of the West of England LEP where he established and chaired the ‘Invest in Bristol and Bath’ inward investment service and established the Engine Shed ‘SetSquared’ enterprise initiative at Temple Meads Station. He has received best paper awards from both the IET Proceedings and IEEE Transactions for his work on satellite tracking systems and SMART Antennas respectively and was voted 6th in the world of Technology Agenda Setters by silicon.com (Bill Gates was ranked second).