It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Professor John Rose. John first joined Queen Mary as an undergraduate student in Mechanical Engineering in 1955. He graduated from his undergraduate degree in 1958. He stayed on to undertake research for a PhD with advisor Prof Edwin Le Fevre, which he completed in 1964. John also completed a Doctor of Science degree in 1979. He was made an Assistant Lecturer in 1961, was promoted to Lecturer from 1962, and was further promoted again to Reader in 1975. He was appointed as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1985.

John was the Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering from 1991–1995. Officially, John started taking his pension in 2001, but he most definitely did not retire. He carried on teaching part time for many years whilst maintaining a full-time research profile winning grants and publishing his research.

He was a Fellow of the IMechE since 1980 and of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers from 1995. He was a member of the UK Heat Transfer Committee and of the UK Heat Transfer Society of which he was president from 2007 to 2008.

His teaching interests were in the fields of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and heat transfer. He held sabbatical appointments at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US Naval Postgraduate School and the Universities of Tokyo and Kyushu.

In 2018 John received the Max Jakob Memorial Award bestowed jointly by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers which is “the highest honour in the area of heat transfer that the participating societies can bestow”. In 2024 he was awarded the UK National Heat Transfer Committee’s Lifetime Contribution Award, awarded in recognition of a “long-term, high-quality contribution to research and teaching in heat transfer”.

Over a long and distinguished career, Prof John Rose became a world recognised pioneer in a wide range of topics related to phase-change heat transfer. The elegance of his approach was evident in the way he extracted essential insights and developed simple closed-form equations with excellent predictive capability. Such features make his research particularly amenable to implementation in real-world designs, rather than being relegated only to scholarly publications. His research has been widely adopted in a variety of industries, including nuclear, process plant, refrigeration and air conditioning. His papers are widely quoted not only in journal literature but also in textbooks and reference handbooks. His work was supported by and benefited many industrial organisations including: British Gas, AEA Harwell, National Nuclear Corp, Cal Gavin Ltd, Ford Motor, Modine Co., Compagnie Industrielle d’Applications Thermiques. John also won grants from national or governmental funding bodies including EPSRC, Royal Society, Leverhulme Trust, National Science Foundation and Office of Naval Research (USA).

John was a highly sought after speaker for invited lectures and presentations throughout the world at conferences, in universities and companies, notably in the USA, Japan, Korea, Brazil, India, as well around Europe and the UK.

But out of all these achievements there is one thing that stands above all the others. John Rose joined Queen Mary in 1955 as an undergraduate student. He never left the institution and last year we recognised the 70th anniversary of his first walk along the Mile End Road to Queen Mary by awarding him the QMUL honorary fellowship. Throughout these seven decades, John gave unstinting continuous and loyal service to Queen Mary. We regularly recognise staff who have achieved 25 years of service, but we are not aware of anyone else who has given so selflessly, honourably and enduringly to the Queen Mary cause.

There are undoubtedly many former students and colleagues who have much to thank John for and who like us will be very sorry to hear this sad news. Our thoughts at QMUL are with John's wife Lisa, his daughter Jacqueline, his son-in-law, Neil and his grandchildren Heidi and Christina at this difficult time.

John’s funeral will take place Wednesday, 19th August at 1pm at The City of London Crematorium in the Traditional Chapel, Aldersbrook Road, London, E12 5DQ. This is followed by a wake at 2pm at The North Star, 24 Browning Road, London, E11 3AR