Professor Friswell graduated in Mathematics from the University of Oxford and has a PhD degree in vibration engineering from Aston University. He performed research into the dynamics and control of underwater vehicles at the Admiralty Research Establishment, Portland for 5 years and became a lecturer at Aston University in 1987. Professor Friswell moved to the University of Wales Swansea in 1993 and in 1996 was awarded an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship for five years. Professor Friswell was awarded the DSc degree by the University of Wales in 2000 and was promoted to a personal chair in the same year. He joined the University of Bristol as the Sir George White Professor of Aerospace Engineering in 2002. Between 2002 and 2007 Professor Friswell was a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award holder and between 2005 and 2008 he was team leader of a Marie-Curie Excellence Grant on Morphing Aircraft. In January 2009 is rejoined Swansea University as Professor of Aerospace Structures. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics of its Applications, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a Member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and a Member of the Society for Experimental Mechanics. Professor Friswell is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures and the International Journal of Structural Health Monitoring, and is on the editorial board or scientific committee for many journals and international conferences.

Professor Friswell has a wide range of research interests, primarily involving structural dynamics although recently expanding to morphing aircraft. His long term and continuing interests include the improvement of finite element models using measured data, the identification of damage location and extent using model based algorithms, rotating machinery dynamics, model reduction methods, the modelling and analysis of structures with viscoelastic damping, the dynamics of non-linear systems, acoustic emission and active vibration control. He was recently awarded a prestigious EU Marie-Curie Excellence Grant in Morphing Aircraft, which funds 7 researchers, and includes various methods of introducing compliance into aircraft structures (aeroelastic tailoring, bistable structures, topology optimization), the design of novel control effectors, the flight control of morphing structures, and conceptual design aspects. The theme running throughout these topics is the modelling and analysis of dynamic structures and systems, and links both experimental data and numerical predictions. The research covers a wide range of traditional engineering disciplines, from civil to aeronautical engineering, and a wide range of topics within these disciplines.