John Perkins (chemical engineer)

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John Douglas Perkins (born 18 March 1950) is a retired academic, engineering scientist, and government adviser. He taught at Imperial College London and the University of Sydney, led the Institution of Chemical Engineers as its President, and served as the UK government’s Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Perkins studied chemical engineering at Imperial College, earning a first‑class BSc in 1971 and the Hinchley Memorial Medal. He did his PhD at Imperial with support from the Salters’ Institute and spent time at the University of Cambridge as a demonstrator. He became a lecturer at Imperial in 1977, was promoted to senior lecturer in 1983, and moved to the University of Sydney in 1985 as ICI Professor of Systems Engineering for three years. He returned to Imperial in 1988 as Professor of Chemical Engineering, later becoming the Courtaulds Professor of Chemical Engineering in 2000 and Principal of the Faculty of Engineering from 2001 to 2004.

While at Imperial, he helped start PSE Ltd and ParOS. In 2004 he moved to the University of Manchester as Vice President and Dean of Engineering and Physical Sciences, a post he held until 2009, after which Manchester made him an honorary professor on retirement. From 2012 to 2015 he was the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and wrote the Perkins Review of engineering skills. He is now a director of JP2 Consulting, with a research focus on process systems engineering.

Perkins was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2007. He is a fellow of several professional bodies: IChemE (since 1986), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (since 1993), the Royal Academy of Engineering (since 1993), the City and Guilds of London Institute (since 1996), the Royal Society of Arts (since 2004), and the IET (since 2015). He also served as President of IChemE in 2000–01 and as Vice‑President of the Royal Academy of Engineering from 2007 to 2010.