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Stuart Burgess wins the 2019 James Clayton Prize

Burgess-James-Clayton-Prize
Professor Stuart Burgess

Britain’s premier mechanical engineering award

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We are delighted to congratulate associate CMI speaker Professor Stuart Burgess for his latest accolade, the 2019 IMechE James Clayton Prize. The UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) state that prize is:

“awarded to a member of the Institution who has made an exceptional contribution to mechanical engineering and related science, technology and invention – by way of research, invention, experimental work, a paper, engineering design or services to engineering.”1

IMechE publically recognise “Stuart’s distinguished career … working at the cutting edge of mechanical engineering research” and explain that there were two projects in particular that impressed the judges:

  • His work on all four of the European Space Agency’s major earth observation satellites. They give special mention to Stuart’s critically important ‘Double Action Worm gearbox’. Indeed, in his co-authored book Inspiration from Creation, Stuart uses the example of this very gearbox (which was critical to the deployment of the satellite solar array) to illustrate the challenge of good engineering design.2
  • His research as Bristol University team leader on Team GB’s Olympic bicycle design. Stuart’s Olympic Gold-winning bike chain-wheel design played a part in the enormous success of Team GB’s velodrome cyclists at the 2016 Olympic Games—a haul of 11 medals, including six golds and several world records. Of course, that is not to take away from the incredible talents of Team GB’s athletes who had also been dominant at the previous Olympics. In July 2017, in honour of the part Stuart had played in the team’s success, the Royal Society of London invited him to showcase his work at their Summer Science Exhibition.3 He and his team are currently doing innovative work to improve industrial chain drives.

IMechE sum up Prof Burgess’s worthiness to receive the Clayton Prize with these words:

“With his role in British Cycling’s gold medals and world records, or the ESA’s satellites which are helping to monitor climate change - the biggest issue of the day - Stuart is clearly leading in his field and is a worthy winner of the award.”1

Not bad for a man who is an avowed and unashamed biblical creationist! So much for the fatuous and thread-bare claims that creationists can’t be scientists, and that they make no contributions to science. On the contrary, Stuart stands alongside many accomplished men and women who achieved high standing in the competitive academic world. They are people who are constantly striving for excellence, both as Christians (who believe Genesis 1–11 as factual history) and as eminent scientists, medics and engineers. It can certainly be said of Stuart Burgess that his life is about Giving glory to the Creator.

Published: 2 January 2020

References and notes

  1. James Clayton Prize 2019, imeche.org; accessed 18 December 2019. Return to text.
  2. Burgess, S. and Statham, D., Inspiration from Creation: How engineers are copying God’s designs, Creation Book Publishers, Atlanta, GA, pp. 28–31, 2018. Return to text.
  3. See the Update Box at the end of this article: Bell, P., Olympic Gold-winning bike design, creation.com/olympic-gold-winning-bike#box, 5 September 2016. Return to text.

Helpful Resources

Inspiration from Creation
by Professor Stuart Burgess & Dominic Statham
US $14.00
Soft cover