Professor Anthony Purnell

at Whittle Lab, University of Cambridge

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Head of Technical Development, British Cycling
Fellow-Commoner in Engineering, Trinity Hall Cambridge

Professor Tony Purnell FRSA is the Head of Technical Development at British Cycling, where he works across all aspects of technology – from improving data analysis to assisting the coaches with the development of organisational software and tools to optimise rider performance. He is also a Fellow-Commoner in Engineering at Trinity Hall Cambridge.

Professor Purnell studied Mechanical Engineering at Manchester University before going to MIT as a Kennedy Scholar to do his Masters. He then returned the UK to work as researcher at the University of Cambridge working on wind tunnel analysis software.

He founded Pi Research (and its later spin-off Pi Technology) which was sold to the in the late 90s. From 2002 to 2006 he was Team Principal of the Jaguar, and then Red Bull, F1 teams. He then worked as a Technical and Strategic Adviser for the FIA (the governing body for motor racing) between 2006 - 2010, before taking up his current post.