Background

Professor Dickens started his career as an Apprentice Production Engineer at Massey-Ferguson UK Ltd. in Coventry where he worked for 7 years.

From 1983 to 1988 he was a Lecturer in the Department of Production Engineering & Production Management at the University of Nottingham.

From 1988 to 1990 he was Director of Design and Manufacturing at New Dawn Engineering Ltd. He rejoined the University of Nottingham in 1990 where he worked as a Reader until 1997. In 1998 he joined De Montfort University as Professor of Manufacturing Technology. In October 2001 he joined Loughborough University as Professor of Manufacturing Technology.

School Research Groups

Manufacturing

Research Interests and Activities

Professor Dickens is recognised Nationally and Internationally in the area of Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing and has produced 57 journal papers and 139 other papers on the subject.

External Activities

Journal editorial board membership
He is on the editorial board of the International Rapid Prototyping Journal

Visiting Titles
Visiting Professor at EPFL and has a honorary doctorate from Technical University of Cluj Napoca, Romania

Major conference activity
He has been a keynote speaker at several conferences such as Rapid Manufacturing Seminar, Joensuun Tiedepuistossa; MteM Conference, Cluj-Napoca, Virtual Modelling and Rapid Manufacturing conference, Leiria.

He was organiser and Chairman of the annual European Conference on Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing from 1992 to 1997.

Advisory Roles
Member of the EPSRC Peer Review College from 1997 to 2009. He has served on many EPSRC panels and been the chair of Platform Grant panels, Active Aircraft Panel, IMRC selection panel and the Large Grants Prioritisation Panel.
He is a reviewer of grant applications for the Hong Kong Research Council and a Member of Research Grants Panel for Maltese Government and a Member of the Audit Commission for TNO Industrial technology.
In 2002 he was a member of the UK DTI OSTEM to Australia to study technology for Die-Casting.

Journal referee
Regularly reviews papers for journals such as IMechE Part B, International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, IJPR , Journal of Materials Processing.

Commercialisation of research
Dickens, P.M. and Hague, R. J.M. - "Method of making a three-dimensional article", UK Patent GB 2 307 439 B. published 24/12/19. This patent is licensed to 3D Systems Inc. and the method is used by companies worldwide

Awards

He was awarded the IMechE Donald Julius Groen Prize in 2003.

Publications

In 2005 he co-edited the first book on Rapid Manufacturing.

View central admin publications database (new window)

Further Links

The Rapid Manufacturing Research Group (RMRG)