Ivor began his engineering education in South Africa and completed it with a PhD from Christ’s College in 1976. He then worked in industry for 11 years before returning to the Whittle Laboratory to work on a short-term research project. The work proved so interesting, and the projects so numerous, that he stayed on for another 32 years.
Apart from the supervision of PhD students, his work has been mostly experimental, concentrating on problems which have hindered the design, or efficient operation, of jet engines. His main interest has been in the aerodynamic stability of aero-compressors (stall and surge), but he has also worked on rain ingestion, combustion instabilities, turbulence, tidal turbines and propeller performance.
Over the years, Ivor has received the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ Gas Turbine Award six times. He has also received the John P. Davis Award, the George Stephenson Prize and a Rolls-Royce Best Patent Award. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a Fellow of the British Institution of Mechanical Engineers and, in 2010, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
At Wolfson, Ivor has been a Tutor, a member of Council, a member of the Bursarial Committee, the Inspector of Accounts and has recently become a member of the Wolfson College Emeritus Fellows Society.