Dame Ann Patricia Dowling OM DBE FRS FREng (born 15 July 1952) is a British mechanical engineer who researches combustion, acoustics and vibration, focusing on efficient, low-emission combustion and reduced road vehicle and aircraft noise.

Dowling is a Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and from 2009 to 2014 she was Head of the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, where she was the first female professor in 1993.

She was President of the Royal Academy of Engineering from 2014 to 2019, the Academy's first female president.

 

Dowling was educated at Ursuline Convent School, Westgate, Kent, and the University of Cambridge (as a member of Girton College), where after studying mathematics at undergraduate level, and following a summer job at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, she was awarded a PhD degree in 1978.

Dowling's doctorate was in aeroacoustics, specifically on the Concorde noise problem.

 

Dowling's research career has been at University of Cambridge starting as a research fellow in 1977 but she has held visiting posts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Jerome C Hunsaker Visiting Professor, 1999) and at the California Institute of Technology (Moore Distinguished Scholar 2001).

Dowling is one of four main panel chairs for the Research Excellence Framework.

 

On 3 February 2012, BP announced that Dowling was to become a non-executive director with immediate effect.

She has been a non-executive board member at BIS since February 2014.