QinetiQ Australia Awards Fellowship to Colin Cockroft

The QinetiQ Fellowship Scheme recognises and rewards the company’s top scientists, engineers and technical leaders.

To be appointed a Fellow, individuals must have achieved exceptional technical standing, typically to a nationally or internationally recognised level.

Through innovation, technical leadership and demonstration of QinetiQ’s values, they must have delivered significant impact for our customers and QinetiQ.

“Colin’s accomplishments and qualities make him a very worthy member of the Fellows community. That Colin is the fourth Fellow in the Australian business speaks yet again of the calibre of the people who make QinetiQ Australia,” said Michael Houston, Engineering Director for QinetiQ’s International Business Unit.

Fellows are appointed by a committee of senior leaders following a rigorous process featuring a formal submission against the Fellowship criteria, internal and external references, and an interview by a panel including the Dean of Fellows, an independent external technical specialist of standing and a business senior technical leader.

Through this process, Colin made a compelling case based on his significant accomplishments in deployable power and energy, including:

• Thought leadership in deployable power and energy built on exceptional customer engagement and a deep understanding of the customer’s operational challenge;
• An ability to communicate a vision of a technical solution and its operational benefits, fundamental to gaining customer support and winning Defence Innovation Hub funds on multiple occasions;
• Leadership of the development of the Field Power Storage and Management System (FPSMS), the Field Electrical Distribution System (FEDS) and the Smart Grid technology; 
• Collaboration with research partners such as CSIRO and DSTG, more recently on ground-breaking technology; and
• Mentoring relatively new engineers working on P&E projects and supporting their development.

Those who work with Colin will be familiar with the passion and insight he brings to working any problem.

“Col has an exceptional ability to understand and solve customers’ P&E challenges. His ability to identify and harness emerging technologies to solve the complex challenges faced by defence to power the electrified battlespace has established QinetiQ as the go-to Company for P&E solutions. The research and development programs he leads have the potential to deliver significant export orders for Australian industry,” said Russ Maddalena, Program Lead for QinetiQ Australia’s Robotics and Autonomous Systems.

Colin joins the other three Fellows at QinetiQ Australia: Tim Cooper, Alex Kolodin and Feng Rice.

All Fellows receive a stipend of hours and dollars that they use to help them stay abreast of their technical field and further their work.