Rate My Professor Margaret Lucas

Professor Margaret Lucas holds the Regius Chair of Civil Engineering and Mechanics and is Professor of Ultrasonics in the Systems Power & Energy division within the James Watt School of Engineering at the University of Glasgow. She currently serves as Dean of Research for the College of Science and Engineering. Lucas obtained her BSc(Eng) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Aberdeen and completed her PhD in power ultrasonics at Loughborough University. Her career commenced as a Lecturer in dynamics at Loughborough University in 1990. In 1996, she joined the University of Glasgow, progressing to Senior Lecturer in 1998, Reader in 2003, and full Professor in 2006. She established the ultrasonics research foundation at the University and is the founding Director of the Centre for Medical and Industrial Ultrasonics (C-MIU), where she leads the £7.7 million Ultrasurge programme grant.

Lucas's research focuses on vibration analysis and the design of high-power ultrasonic tools and devices operating at frequencies from 20 kHz to 100 kHz and powers from tens of watts to several kilowatts. Applications encompass cutting hard human tissue for surgery, food products, forming metals and soft solids, joining materials, and bacterial inactivation. Ongoing projects involve ultrasonic orthopaedic surgical devices, drills for sampling rocks on Mars and other planetary missions, and ultrasonics in metal forming processes. With 157 publications, notable works include "A miniature ultrasonic surgical device based on a flextensional configuration with a pre-stressed PZT stack" published in Communications Engineering (2026), "Pressure and not spatial average temporal average intensity governs mechanosensitive responses of osteoblast-like cells exposed to low intensity pulsed ultrasound" in Ultrasonics (2026), and "Lattice Structures Enable Tailoring of the Vibrational Response of Langevin Transducers" at the 2025 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium. She has been honored as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 2020, recipient of the IET Achievement Medal for Ultrasonic Technology in 2020, and elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2021. Her contributions have advanced ultrasonic applications in robot-assisted surgery, manufacturing, and space exploration.