John Edwin Midwinter (8 March 1938 – 13 November 2021) was a British electrical engineer and professor, who was President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (now IET) from 2000 to 2001.
[1] From the 1970s, John's research centred on optical fibre communications, and he led the speedy deployment of optical communications infrastructure in the UK while at British Telecom.
[2] He was subsequently the BT Professor of Optoelectronics at University College London from 1984 to 1991 and Pender Professor of Electronic Engineering from 1991 to 2004, and was Vice Provost from 1994 to 1999.
[3] He was also a member of the Parliamentary Office of Science & Technology Advisory Board.
He delivered the Clifford Paterson Lecture[7] of the Royal Society in 1983 and was awarded the IEE JJ Thomson Medal [8] in 1987 and the Faraday Medal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1997.