Railway Division Chair's Address 2020 Felix Schmid, CEng, FIMechE, FIRSE, FPWI The Seymour Biscoe

Felix Schmid, Dipl.El.Ing. ETH, PhD, FIMechE, FIRSE, FPWI, born in Zürich, Switzerland.

Felix Schmid graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology with a degree in electrical and electronic engineering. Following a brief career in software analysis in his home country, he moved to Manchester, England, to work for GEC Traction as a locomotive control systems engineer, until 1982. He was a research engineer at UMIST and a research assistant at the University of Salford before joining Brunel University as a lecturer in control engineering. In 1993, he was seconded to the Swiss Federal Office of Transport as a railway inspector.

He returned to Britain and a senior lectureship at the University of Sheffield, where he developed the MSc programme in Railway Systems Engineering with support from British Rail. In 2005, Felix and the programme transferred to the University of Birmingham and the Birmingham Centre for Railway Re-search and Education. Between 2005 and 2019, he managed three railway related masters programmes and supervised research in the areas of railway control, railway operations and systems engineering. He was instrumental in developing short courses in railway systems engineering at Sheffield and Birmingham and also designed and ran some 30 European study tours for his students.

Felix became a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 2003. He is on the Board and the Executive of the Railway Division and has led four Railway Technical Tours between 2016 and 2019. He is currently involved in the planning of the Railway Technical Tours for 2021. Felix Schmid has provided contributions to many IMechE railway conferences and seminars, including 10 Young Members’ seminars. He is also a fellow of the Institution of Railway Signalling Engineers and of the Permanent Way Institution.