Ashok Kumar (28 May 1956 – 15 March 2010)[1] was a British Labour politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland from 1997 until his sudden death shortly before the 2010 general election.

He then studied Chemical Engineering at Aston University in Birmingham where he was awarded a BSc in 1978, and an MSc in Process Analysis and Control Theory in 1980, and a PhD in Fluid Mechanics in 1982.

Kumar won the successor seat of Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland at the 1997 general election, again defeating Bates, and held it until his death in 2010.

The annual fellowship will see the successful candidate spend three months at the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST).

[5] By 2017, the sixth Ashok Kumar Fellow had been appointed to work with POST she was a postgraduate engineering student, Erin Johnson, from Imperial College, London.