Professor Cham Athwal
Cham Athwal is currently working part-time as a Professor in the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment (CEBE). His main responsibilities are in developing and growing CEBE's activities in India. He has played a major role in developing the Munjal BCU Centre of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Ludhiana in India: a partnership between BCU and the charitable foundation of the Hero Group of companies. He is active in developing TNE, Articulation Agreements and Research Partnerships with Indian Universities.
Cham's current research interests are in Climate Change challenges in South Asia, with a focus on the uptake, enhancement and scaling of Solar Irrigation Pump based Microgrids.
Cham was Associate Dean, 2018-2023, with strategic and operational responsibility for Research and Enterprise across the CEBE Faculty. Cham founded and led BCU’s DMTLab between 2009-2022 with specialisms in Image, Audio and Video Processing, and Virtual and Augmented Reality.
Cham joined BCU as a Senior Lecturer in Software Engineering in1990 and has since had a long history of industry collaboration projects. Funded by sources such as EPSRC, DTI, ERDF and EU R&D Framework, Cham has applied Digital Technologies in sectors including automotive, manufacturing, health, and creative industries. He has supervised numerous Knowledge Transfer Partnerships with awards including National Best Programme, 4* impact rating in REF2014 and selection as an exemplar impact case study. He has also supervised around a dozen PhD students and published around 100 research papers.
Prior to joining BCU his postdoctoral career has included Research Fellowships in the Engineering Departments at the Universities of Southampton and Lancaster. He also spent two years as a CERN Fellow in Geneva working on the development of the Large Hadron Collider, before leading a radar/microwave R&D group at GEC Ltd for three years.