Anne Neville (21 March 1970 – 2 July 2022) was the Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in emerging technologies and Professor of Tribology and Surface Engineering at the University of Leeds.
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Early life and education
Anne Neville was born on 21 March 1970 in Dumfries, where she also grew up with her older sister Linda. Their mother Doris worked as a pharmacy technician and their father Bill was a process worker at ICI Dumfries. Her uncle is Professor Robert Black, Emeritus Professor of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh. Anne attended Maxwellton High School where her interest in maths and physics grew. Anne was also a good badminton player and played the trumpet.
She was educated at Maxwelltown High School in Dumfries and was unsure what she should do at university, at one point considered becoming a social worker. She went into engineering by accident. The Glasgow University prospectus fell open at the page with a Rolls-Royce gas turbine picture and she thought it looked interesting. Anne Neville's maths teacher was a mechanical engineer and he inspired her to investigate further. After visiting the university open days, Anne Neville decided that she wanted to study engineering and rejected her earlier initial thoughts of either studying maths or physics.
