Lifetime Achievement Award
Award for BINDT members
Award criteria
Purpose: The purpose of this award is to recognise a valuable and extensive contribution to the British Institute of NDT and the wider NDT/CM/SHM community by an individual who has been an active member of the Institute for an extensive period of time.
Details of the award: The award will consist of a full-time registration at the NDT Annual Conference and accommodation for three nights, an engraved gift, a framed certificate signed by the President and the Chief Executive Officer and £300 cash. The award will also entitle the recipient to become a corresponding member of Council and any other committee if they so wish, subject to the usual exclusions.
Eligibility: The successful nominee must be reaching the end of their career and must have spent a substantial part of it working in the field of NDT/CM/SHM or another Institute-supported discipline. They must have been a long-term active member of the British Institute of NDT and, during that period, must have supported the Institute as an active committee member. The successful nominee will stand out as having made a considerable contribution towards the charitable objectives of the Institute through having been proactive in the promotion of its activities.
The proposer of the award should be a voting member of the Institute. If they are not, they will need to ensure the application is endorsed by an Institute voting member.
Frequency: It is important that such a prestigious award is only awarded when it is deemed right to do so. ONE per year.
Nomination arrangements: The nomination must be seconded by an elected member of Council and receive a 75% positive response from elected members who are in attendance on the day of the election; a proxy vote may be submitted to Karen Cambridge by any non-attending Council members.
Awarding arrangements: The award will be made at the NDT Annual Conference Dinner and will be awarded by the President. The nominee will be given a ten-minute slot to respond after receiving the award to talk about their career.
Committee: Council.
Winners
2026 winner: Professor Len Gelman
Len Gelman, PhD, Dr of Sciences (Habilitation) and Distinguished Chair Professor in Signal Processing and Condition Monitoring, has been with the University of Huddersfield from 2017 to present, having been with Cranfield University from 2002 to 2017. He is the Director of the Centre for Efficiency and Performance Engineering at the University of Huddersfield. He is a Fellow of the British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing (BINDT), a Fellow of the International Association of Engineers and a Fellow of the Institution of Diagnostic Engineers, UK.
Len has been actively collaborating with BINDT since 2003, as Chair of the annual CM conferences for 20 years (2007-2026), Chair of the CM Technical Committee for ten years (2007-2016), a member of Council since 2007, Editor-in-Chief of Condition Monitor for ten years, Chair of the First World Congress on Condition Monitoring (WCCM 2017) hosted by BINDT, past Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Condition Monitoring (IJCM), Editorial Board member of Insight and a panel member for selection of the best paper for the Len Gelman Award at the annual CM conferences.
He is a past winner of BINDT’s COMADIT Prize for a significant contribution through research and development in condition monitoring.
Len has collaborated internationally as Co-Chair of the WG6 Condition Monitoring Working Group of the International Committee for Non-Destructive Testing (ICNDT) for five years, Co-Chair of the WG3 Condition Monitoring Working Group of the European Federation for Non-Destructive Testing (EFNDT) for five years, Executive Director of the International Society for Condition Monitoring (ISCM), Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal on Condition-Based and Predictive Maintenances, Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Engineering Sciences (SCMR), an Editor-in-Chief of IAENG International Journal of Computer Science, Co-Chair of the Fourth World Congress on Condition Monitoring (WCCM 2026), Chair of the International Committee of the Second World Congress on Condition Monitoring (WCCM 2019), Chair of the International Committee of the Third World Congress of Condition Monitoring (WCCM 2024), Chair of the World Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM), a member of the ISO Technical Committee on condition monitoring and President of the International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration (IIAV) (2014-2016).
He is co-author of more than 200 publications and 18 patents and co-editor of 14 Springer books, winner of two prestigious Rolls-Royce (UK) Awards for Innovation in Condition Monitoring: 2012 and 2019, Honorary Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, China, and Visiting Professor at ten universities.
Len has received awards from the following: the Oxford Academic Health Science Network; the UK Institution of Mechanical Engineers (William Smith Prize); the US Navy; the European Operational Programme; and the Acoustical Society of America.
He has presented 45 plenary keynote lectures at major international conferences and more than 100 invited lectures in the UK, the USA, France, Italy, Denmark, Switzerland, Netherlands, India and Israel.
Len is the Editor-in-Chief of the Condition Monitoring book series published by Coxmoor, Oxford, UK, Editor of the Journal of Asian Scientific Research, Associate Editor of the international journal Sensors, the international journal Signal, Image and Video Processing and the international journal Complex Engineering Systems and Editorial Board Member of 30 major international journals.
Len is the Principal Investigator of the following grants/projects: UK Royal Society, US International Science Foundation, USA Civilian Research and Development Foundation, USA MacArthur Foundation, USA National Academy of Sciences, USA National Research Council, Israel Lady Davis, Italian Landau Centro Volta, UK Shell, UK Rolls-Royce, Boeing Centre of Excellence, UK SKF, London Underground, UK EPSRC, EU Framework FP7 and USA Caterpillar.
Past winners:
2014 Mr M R Dawson
2015 Dr W E Gardner
2016 Dr J M Farley
2017 Gail Long
2018 Prof Tony Hope
2019 Dennis Wells
2020 Roger Lyon
2023 John Moody
