Gareth Bennett

Dr. Gareth J. Bennett, B.A., B.A.I., M.Sc., Ph.D., C.Eng., MIEI, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering in Trinity College Dublin. In 2015 he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Notre Dame and NASA Glenn where he will research innovative low noise solutions to reduce aviation noise for a sustainable environment. Dr. Bennett obtained his B.A.I. Mechanical Engineering Degree in 1994 and his M.Sc. degree through research in 1996, both from the University of Dublin, T.C.D. In 1994 Dr. Bennett obtained a research fellowship to work in the national Nuclear and Technological Research Institute (I.T.N.) in Lisbon, Portugal to carry out work in fluid elastic instability, vibration analysis and signal processing. After completion of his M.Sc., degree Dr. Bennett worked for a year in a national fluid mechanics research laboratory (L.E.G.I.) in Grenoble, France performing research in the area of Computerised Fluid Dynamics (CFD) as applied to cavitational flows of turbine blades. On returning to Ireland, Dr. Bennett accepted employment in the industrial sector working, initially as a consultant in Vibration analysis, and subsequently as a Senior Mechanical Design Engineer in an American multinational (Thermoking) and subsequently an Irish SME (Odenburg). From 2002-2007 he managed TCD's contribution to a collaborative FP5 EU research project "Silencer" worth 40k and completed his Ph.D. "Noise Source Identification For Ducted Fans" in 2006. Dr. Bennett is currently P.I. on five EU FP7 projects of which he is the Coordinator of three: "TEENI" (400k):- Broadband Noise Source Identification of Helicopter Engines; "WENEMOR" a Clean Sky JTI project in the area of Open Rotor installation effects (2,000,000), "ALLEGRA": a second Clean Sky JTI project to reduce noise from the landing gear of Green Regional Aircraft (2,000,000). "ARTIC": is a third Clean Sky JTI project also on the topic of reducing landing gear noise from Green Regional Aircraft (1,400,000). Dr. Bennett is also the National Focal Point in Ireland for X-Noise EV an FP7 Coordination and Support Action in Aeroacoustics and is the only Irish member of the Aeroacoustics Specialists' Committee of the Confederation of European Aerospace Societies (CEAS). In addition to his principle research areas: Sound, Vibration & Aeroacoustics he is also research active in the areas of Design (Open, Universal and Medical Device Design) as well as conducting research in Engineering Education.

In the Design Community he is responsible for the School of Engineering joining the CDIO organisation for which he is the contact principle for the School and he has recently returned from Stanford University where he was a Visiting Scholar in the School of Engineering and the Centre for Design Research (D-School). His strategic placement in Stanford was to audit the ME310 collaborative "Design Thinking" module and since returning to Ireland, Dr. Bennett has led the introduction of ME310 to the School of Engineering and TCD is now in its forth year of collaboration with Stanford on this module. Dr. Bennett lectures in the area of Mechanical Engineering Design and has helped to extensively revise the undergraduate curriculum, introducing innovative project based design modules. This lead to Dr. Bennett receiving the Provost's Teaching Award for Academic Excellence, the University's most prestigious teaching award and was recently selected as a nominee for Trinity for a National Award for Teaching Excellence (NAIRTL). Dr. Bennett currently has seven graduate students and two post-doctoral fellows in his research group.