Rate My Professor David Hutchins

Professor David Hutchins is a Professor in the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick, a position he has held since 1995. He obtained his PhD from the University of Aston in Birmingham. Prior to Warwick, he held postdoctoral positions at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, the University of Hull in the UK, and Dalhousie University in Canada, followed by appointments as Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Throughout his career, Hutchins has specialized in ultrasonic technologies, contributing significantly to advancements in imaging and measurement systems.

His research interests encompass the design and fabrication of ultrasonic systems for imaging and measurement, increasingly incorporating novel transduction mechanisms like capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers and metamaterials. Key projects include Fabry-Perot resonant structures in collaboration with the Universities of Perugia and Calabria, phononic crystals via the EU MetacMed doctoral network, defect metamaterial lattices with Warwick's Department of Physics, rust detection using electronic noses with Professors James Covington and Duncan Billson, and air-coupled ultrasonic arrays for cultural heritage objects in the UNVEIL EU doctoral network. Hutchins has secured major funding, such as EU Horizon Europe grants for UNVEIL (2026-2030) and MetacMed (2024-2028), EPSRC funding for high-resolution biomedical imaging using ultrasonic metamaterials (2016-2020), a Leverhulme Trust project on nonlinear air-coupled thermosonics (2020-2022), and others from UKRI and EPSRC iCASE. He received the IET Achievement Medal in 2015 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2016. Prominent publications include 'Detection of rust corrosion in mild steel and stainless steel through headspace analysis by electronic noses' (IEEE Sensors Journal, 2025), 'An ultrasonic metamaterial based on Lieb lattice structures' (2025), 'Acoustic field visualisation using local absorption of ultrasound and thermochromic liquid crystals' (Ultrasonics, 2024), 'Defect detection and imaging in composite structures using magnetostrictive patch transducers' (Sensors, 2023), 'Thermosonic inspection of carbon fibre reinforced polymer composites using an airborne haptic ultrasonic phased array' (NDT & E International, 2022), and 'A Metallic Additively Manufactured Metamaterial for Enhanced Monitoring of Acoustic Cavitation-Based Therapeutic Ultrasound' (Advanced Engineering Materials, 2021). These efforts highlight his influence in non-destructive testing, biomedical applications, and acoustic engineering.