Former Boeing UK president Sir Roger Bone has been named a Doctor of Engineering in recognition of his partnership work with the AMRC.

Sir Roger received his honorary degree at this week's University of Sheffield graduation ceremonies at which Pete Crawforth, from the AMRC and Krystian Wika, from the Nuclear AMRC received their PhDs.

Sir Roger is an honorary ambassador for British business and member of the Board of Directors of the National Council for Universities and Businesses; an organisation focussed on strengthening the strategic partnership between universities and business, with a view to driving economic growth and recovery.

During his nine years as President of Boeing UK, Sir Roger worked in collaboration with the University's pioneering Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre to develop advanced manufacturing technologies that will help reduce the time and cost of producing aerospace products while improving quality and performance.

Sir Roger addressed graduates in science, mathematics and engineering at the ceremony on 21 July, saying it was an extraordinary honour to be with them and receive his degree:

"The subjects honoured today, engineering, maths and sciences, form a crucial area of expertise for the wealth and success of society.

"My own expertise is in the aerospace sector in the last decade and I know how perfectly well just how important to that industrial base engineers and new engineers are.

Sir Roger went on to tell the graduates who have their sights on working in the aerospace industry that they will be supporting a fine tradition of manufacturing within the UK. He spoke about his work in partnership with the AMRC:

"I've been privileged to work with and to know the AMRC for the last decade, from the very early days when it was almost just a bare field, to the superb research institution which it has now become.

"It is regarded as one of the very few university research centres globally, which genuinely understands the interface between manufacturing research and industrial application."

Pete Crawforth was awarded his PhD for research into 'Micromechanistic Understanding of Imparted Subsurface Deformation during Machining of Titanium Alloys'.

Krystian Wika received his PhD for research into the 'Influence of Drill Geometry on CFRP/Titanium Machining'. His research was part of a collaborative project between Dormer Tools (Sandvik Coromant) and the AMRC.

Pete Crawforth is a technical lead in the AMRC's Process Technology Group, specialising in Machinability of materials. He started working with the AMRC in 2009 after completing his Masters in Materials Science with the University's Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Krystian Wika joined the Nuclear AMRC in August 2011 as a research engineer.

Whilst with the Nuclear AMRC machining group, Krystian has worked extensively on deep-hole drilling research and is now technical lead for cryogenic machining.