Bowyer, Adrian

Born in London, 1952, Mr. Bowyer is mostly widely known as the inventor of the RepRap 3D printer and founder of the RepRap Movement. He is also somewhat involved in MakerBot Industries.

Mr. Bowyer graduated from Imperial College in 1973 with the equivalent of a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering. Continuing on at Imperial College, he received a Ph.D. in Tribology (“the study of interacting surfaces in relative motion”).

In 1977, he was hired by Bath University’s Mathematical Science Department to research computational geometry then made head of the Microprocessor Unit where he spent several years. While in this position, he created an algorithm (at the same time as David Watson) called the Voronoi Diagram used for dividing space into various regions.

In 1984, he began lecturing for the Mechanical Engineering Department of Bath University and was thereafter promoted to Senior Lecturer. He stayed in this position until his retirement in 2012 to focus on the RepRap project and its related company, RepRapPro Ltd.

The RepRap (short for “replicating rapid prototyper”) is the world’s first general purpose, self-replicating 3D printer. It has been called the “invention that will bring down global capitalism, start a second industrial revolution, and save the environment”.

Dr. Bowyer is married and has one daughter.