Professor David Flynn

Co-director
Earl Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS
Research Profile: Heriot-Watt Research Profile
Supervisor to: Darius Roman and Lucas Kirschbaum
Secondary Supervisor to: Yibo Liu, Civan Kahraman and Sonam Norbu
Professor David Flynn is a Professor of Smart Systems at Heriot-Watt University. David is also the Vice Chair of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) Scotland. David is the founder of the Smart Systems Group (SSG) at Heriot-Watt University, executive board member of the UKs National Robotarium and Associate Director of the UKs National Centre for Energy Systems Integration. The research of the SSG involves multidisciplinary expertise within Cyber Physical Systems, such as sensing technologies, data analysis, robotics, artificial intelligence, digitalisation and systems engineering. Our research supports both challenge lead research, designing advanced technologies for critical infrastructure and services e.g. energy systems, industrial systems, and extreme environment applications. Our discover, blue sky, research relates to the design and optimisation of materials and systems. 
 
Prof. Flynn has published over 160 journals, conference papers and books. He holds two international patents for sensing technologies. He is a strategic advisor to Scottish and UK Governments, as well as the US Congress Research Office. Prof. Flynn is a Data and Digitalisation advisory to Scottish Power Energy Networks and a TUV SuD Associate.
 
My degrees include a BEng (Hons), 1st Class in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (2002), an MSc (Distinction) in Microsystems (2003) and a PhD in Microscale Magnetic Components (2007), from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. 
 
Prof. Flynn is the Interface Knowledge Exchange Champion of the Year for 2020, an IET Scholar as recipient of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) Leslie H Paddle prize. Prof. Flynn is also the IET Information Technology Innovation of the Year 2019 and Global Innovation of the Year winner 2019.  Prof. Flynn is the Associate Editor of IEEE Access. Prof. Flynn teaches Smart System Integration, Electrical Engineering and Energy Systems.