_____________________________________________________________________________________

Emeritus Professor University of Manchester

Biographical resume

Derek Jackson read Engineering at the Victoria University of Manchester and later became a member of the academic staff. He was appointed to the Chair of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering in 1986 and became Director of Studies of the newly-created Manchester School of Engineering in 1994. For over twenty years he led the Nuclear Engineering Research Group at the University of Manchester, a key team within the UK in the area of heat transfer, thermal hydraulics and reactor technology which did much valuable work for industry and generated considerable research income over that period. On reaching normal retirement age in October 2001 he was granted the title Emeritus Professor and has subsequently held honorary professorial appointments at the Victoria University, UMIST and the new, merged University of Manchester. In 2002 he was appointed as a Guest Professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China and in the same year was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Fellowship.

Prof. Jackson is an expert on fluid flow, heat transfer and thermophysics. His researches in those areas have been unusually wide-ranging. Work on the effects of non-uniformity of fluid properties on forced convection heat transfer to gases liquids and also fluids at supercritical pressure was followed by studies of mixed convection, transient turbulent flow, radiative emission, boiling, condensation and evaporation. He also carried out an extensive programme of research on heat transfer to liquid sodium and the characteristics and scattering properties of argon/sodium aerosol mixtures. He has supervised 42 postgraduate students, 31 postdoctoral researchers, published over 200 technical papers in scientific journals and books, has given 7 keynote lectures at international conferences, 25 invited lectures and seminars, made over 100 conference presentations and produced about 300 technical reports for industrial sponsors (for details see Lists of publications).

In recent times Prof. Jackson has concentrated his attention on thermal aspects of very advanced nuclear reactor systems (Generation IV reactors). He was an International Collaborator on the US Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI) Project on the ‘Fundamental Thermal Physics of Flows in High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors’ and later acted as a Consultant on the US International NERI Project with Korea on ‘High Pressure Water-cooled Reactors’. He was a co-investigator on the UK EPSRC funded INTERACT Project with Japan on High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor Research and was a member of the DTI Expert Advisory Committee on Generation IV Nuclear Reactors. He currently sits on the Advisory Panel of the EU funded project on High Performance Light Water Reactors and has just joined the newly initiated IAEA Coordinated Research Programme (CRP) on Advanced Water-cooled Reactors.

Prof. Jackson continues to maintain a high level of international visibility through his extensive overseas contacts, collaboration with researchers in other universities and by regular participation in conferences and meetings. He is a leading international authority on the thermal hydraulics of fluids at supercritical pressure and on the effects of buoyancy on turbulent flow and heat transfer.

Back to contents