Professor Mike Fernando

Engineering operates a budget of £26m and Mike provides operational leadership by working in collaboration with the Academic Leads. The School covers a range of subject areas, from Architecture to Aerospace, Construction to Civil, E&E to Environment, Mechanical to Motorsports and Oil & Gas to Fire Engineering. The School is currently home to 6 research institutes and 4 ERDF centres.

Prior to his UCLan appointment, Mike served as the Dean of Strategic Development and Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Computing and Engineering (FACE) at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD). Professor Fernando is a Chartered Engineer and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Prior to joining the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, he led a multi-disciplinary portfolio of undergraduate programmes offered in the School of Engineering at Manchester Metropolitan University. Mike is an experienced engineering academic, academic consultant for transnational education (TNE) and an industrial consultant for Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC).

Mike is an RF engineer and his research expertise is in the area of using Microwaves and Millimetre waves for imaging purposes. He started his research career with Cancer Research UK exploring the use of the patented Synthetic Reference Beam Holography for breast cancer detection. Mike used his imaging expertise to work with MoD in security imaging. Mike’s research career has been supported by grants and funding from MoD, Wellcome Trust and Leverhulme Trust.

Mike served on the board of directors for TechHub Swansea on behalf of UWTSD. TechHub is a global community for tech entrepreneurs and start-ups. Mike worked exclusively with tech product start-ups and scale-ups by understanding the process they go through and the needs they have at each stage (from ideation to exit). Mike oversaw the development of 3 tech start-ups that grew from founder-led businesses to companies employing staff to meet the demands of their growth. Mike’s latest research grant is the successful HEIR bid to the value of £4.75 million to Set up a cross-faculty enterprise project: Employer Engagement Taskforce to support the local SME post-covid recovery.