Alec Nigel Broers, Baron Broers, (born 17 September 1938) is a British electrical engineer. In 1994 Broers was elected an international member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to electronic beam lithography and microscopy and for leadership in microfabrication. Education and early life Broers was born in Calcutta, India and educated at Geelong Grammar School and Melbourne University in Australia and at University of Cambridge (Gonville and Caius College) in England. Career Broers then worked in the research and development laboratories of IBM in the United States for 19 years before returning to Cambridge in 1984 to become Professor of Electrical Engineering (1984–96) and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1985–90). He is a pioneer of nanotechnology. Broers subsequently became Master of Churchill College, Cambridge (1990–96) and Head of the Cambridge University Engineering Department (1993–96). He was Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, 1996–2003. In 1997 he was invited to deliver the MacMillan Memorial Lecture to the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. He chose the subject "The Role and Education of the Creative Engineer". He was knighted in 1998 and created a crossbench life peer in 2004, as Baron Broers, of Cambridge in the County of Cambridgeshire. Lord Broers was Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Lords from 2004 to 2007 and was President of the Royal Academy of Engineering from 2001 to 2006. In September 2008, Lord Broers took over from Sir David Cooksey as chairman of the board of directors at the Diamond Light Source, the United Kingdom's largest new scientific facility for 45 years. Awards and honours Lord Broers has received more than twenty honorary degrees and fellowships from universities, colleges, and academic and professional institutions. He is a Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Engineering, the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and the American Philosophical Society. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1985. He is an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge. Career summary 1938 Born 17 September in Calcutta, India 1941 Moved to Sydney, Australia 1944 Moved to Purley, Surrey, UK 1948 Moved to Melbourne, Australia and attended Geelong Grammar School 1959 BSc degree in physics from Melbourne University, Australia 1962 BA degree in electrical sciences from the University of Cambridge, after arriving initially as a choral scholar 1965 PhD degree at University of