Emeritus Professor Philip Wilson

Professor Philip A Wilson is Emeritus Professor of Ship Dynamics within Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Southampton.

Philip studied Mathematics for his first degree at the University of Leicester and was subsequently awarded a DSc by publication by the University of Leicester. Following work for Plessey Underwater systems he started in the University of Southampton in 1973 as a research fellow in the former Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics as part of the fledgling Ship Science group. He is a founder member of the former Department of Ship Science and a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. Currently he is the founding editor of the International Journal of Maritime Engineering of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. He has published more than 350 academic papers and has appeared in such television programmes as Blue Peter, What Sank the Mary Rose? and as a judge in Scrapheap Challenge. More recently he showed how HMS Queen Mary sank during the Battle of Jutland in the television programme Battle of Jutland: The Royal Navy's Bloodiest battle.

Philip has successfully supervised more than 50 doctoral students in subjects spanning seakeeping, ship manoeuvring, autonomous underwater vehicle control and guidance, sail aerodynamics, preliminary ship design, underwater noise to race car aerodynamics.

He has been the recipient of awards from the Royal Institution of Naval Architects in terms of the medal distinction twice in recent years as well as the award of the Donald Groen medal from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. Also he was part of a team was that awarded the RINA-Lloyd’s Register Ship Safety award.

He was also director for more than 15 years, until his retirement, of the multi-University MTEC course which provides education at MSc on a part-time basis for fully employed naval architects, marine engineers and offshore engineers, details at www.mtec.ac.uk.

Prizes