About Julia Higgins
Dame Julia Stretton Higgins (née Downes; born 1 July 1942) is a British polymer scientist. Since 1976, she has been based at the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London, where (since 2007) she is emeritus professor and senior research investigator. == Education == Higgins was educated at the Ursuline High School, Wimbledon and Somerville College, Oxford where she was awarded Master of Arts and DPhil degrees. == Career == In 1999, Higgins was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering for the application of neutron scattering and reflectivity to polymeric materials, and for service to the scientific community. Higgins chaired the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education (ACME) from 2008 to 2012. She is also a former chair (1998–2003) of the Athena Project, which aims for the advancement of women in science, engineering and technology (SET), in Higher Education. Between 2003 and 2007, she was also chair of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Higgins was president of the Institution of Chemical Engineers 2002–03, and president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 2003–04. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1995, and was its foreign secretary 2001–06. She is a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the City and Guilds of London Institute, of which she is Vice-President.
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