Honorary Graduates
Orations and responses
Professor John O'Reilly
Oration given on 14 July 2004
Chancellor, the Senate has resolved that the Degree of Doctor of the
University be conferred upon JOHN O'REILLY
Engineers are, by the nature of their job, often rather invisible to the
general public. While their historical achievements are familiar to all,
water and sewerage systems, energy supplies, transport and major
construction projects. Fundamentally good engineering whether historical or
current is concerned with designing reliable transparent systems which hide
the engineering complexity from the end user who simply takes for granted
the service provided.
Nowhere is this more true than in the telecommunications industry which has
often been described as the most complex engineering system ever designed and
built because of its truly global nature and continually involving infra
structure and services.
It is within this fertile and exciting field that Professor John O'Reilly has
worked and established a reputation as an engineer's engineer spanning both
academia and industry in a contribution to optical telecommunications that has
been recognised by a variety of national and international awards. Fellow of the
Royal Academy of Engineering, the JJ Thompson Medal of the Institution of
Electrical Engineers, current President of Eurel, the Confederation of European
Electrical Societies and President Elect of the Institution of Electrical
Engineers. Evidently John's peers throughout the field of electrical engineering
hold him in the highest regard.
Like many of the most able engineers John's initial interest in engineering
was practical rather than academic and he began his career at 16 as a student
apprentice with the Royal Radar Establishment, Malvern. An ordinary national
certificate led subsequently to a first class honours degree in electrical
engineering from Brunel University and he also holds a PhD and a Higher
Doctorate DSC.
His industrial experience includes periods with Ultra Electronics and BT as
well as part time Chief Executive and Deputy Chairman of IDB Limited.
Academic appointments have included Professor of Electronic Engineering and
Head of the Department of Electronic Engineering and Computer Systems in the
University of Wales at Bangor and Head of the Department of Electronic and
Electrical Engineering and Professor of Telecommunications at University
College, London. Since 2001 John has been Chief Executive of the UK Engineering
and Physical Sciences Research Council responsible for an annual budget of £500
million dispersed to all UK universities to fund their research and postgraduate
training activities.
So what is John's connection with Essex? John's PhD was gained as a staff
candidate during his first academic appointment as a Lecturer and then Senior
Lecturer at Essex University. Essex therefore has two reasons for claiming to
have influenced John's career development. We provided his formative experience
both as a scholar and as a research engineer and, indeed, his longest continuous
academic appointment from 1972 to 1984.
In turn John has been a major influence on many of us within the Department
of Electronic Systems Engineering both as academic peers in the case of some of
our longest serving members of the Department and as protégées in the case of
several who were research students under his supervision and have subsequently
developed successful academic careers both at Essex and elsewhere.
In researching this oration I asked colleagues who knew John at that time to
describe their experiences. The universal picture that came back was of a
superbly clear strategic thinker and communicator who is rapidly able to digest
and sum up information in any field of interest. Capabilities which he
undoubtedly deploys fully in his current post.
Several colleagues also commented on how helpful John's advice and support
had been to them personally as they started out on their own research careers at
Essex in a very different University culture to that in which we now operate.
One example comes from one of my colleagues who has recently been promoted to a
Chair in the Department who wrote "I had quite some interaction with John during
the latter part of his time here. Firstly he awoke my enduring interest in
optics by supervising my MSc project in the mid 1970s. This led to my being
offered a research studentship and then being given a BT funded post doctoral
opportunity with John's help. I believe that John set my career on its
successful path".
Another Senior Professor in ESE whose research has been the driving force
behind ESE's new Network Centre Building, which you can see outside on Square 1
today, first encountered John as a young lecturer during his final year
undergraduate project in 1974. He recalls John as being an exceptionally helpful
project supervisor who awoke his lifelong research interest in photonics from
which our own world class photonic networks research has eventually grown.
He also noted that John is well known to his friends for his ability to talk
on any subject so we are confident that he will not be lost for words today.
Surely the University has good reason to thank John for the acorns he planted
during his career at Essex.
Chancellor, I present to you JOHN O'REILLY
Orator: Professor Andy Downton