Duc Truong PHAM, OBE, FREng, FSME, BE, PhD, DEng (Canterbury, NZ), FIET, FIMechE, is Professor of Computer-Controlled Manufacture (appointed in October 1988) and Founder Director of the award-winning Manufacturing Engineering Centre at Cardiff University.

He obtained his Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) degree with First-Class Honours, Doctor of Philosophy degree and Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. Between 1979-1988 he was a lecturer in Control Engineering at the University of Birmingham. His work at Birmingham focussed on robotics and automation.

At Cardiff, his research encompasses the wider areas of intelligent systems and advanced manufacturing engineering. His Intelligent Systems Laboratory and Manufacturing Engineering Centre have over 90 researchers and support personnel conducting externally funded projects on intelligent systems and advanced manufacturing technology. These cover knowledge-based systems for manufacturing design and quality control, robot vision and automated visual inspection systems, neural networks for non-linear systems identification and control, rapid prototyping and tooling, micro fabrication, virtual reality and multi-media intelligent product manuals.

The amount of external research grants and contracts he has won for his Laboratory and Centre has exceeded £30M. He has produced over seventy PhD graduates, written more than 400 technical papers, co-authored five books and edited eight other books in his research areas.

His DEng degree was obtained for published work in the field of systems engineering in the period 1979-1993.

He has lectured extensively abroad on his research and has acted as a consultant to several major companies. He is a member of the editorial boards and panels of seven international journals.

He is the recipient of several prizes including the Sir Joseph Whitworth prize awarded by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1996 and 2000 and the Institution's Thomas Stephens Group Prize in 2001 and 2003 and Donald Julius Groen Prize in 2004.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

He was made an OBE in the 2003 New Year's Honours List for his services to Engineering.