Professor Michele Dougherty, FRS, has accepted appointment as Head of the Department of Physics with effect from 1 January 2018, for a period of 5 years.
Professor Dougherty joined the College in 1991 as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant, and was appointed Professor of Space Physics in 2004.
Professor Dougherty is Principal Investigator for the magnetometer instrument onboard the Cassini spacecraft on its mission to explore Saturn and its neighbourhood. Her innovative use of magnetic field data has had an enormous impact on our understanding of the moons in our Solar System. Michele also lead the European science team which made the case to the European Space Agency for a mission to Jupiter and its moons and has subsequently been selected as the Principal Investigator on the magnetometer instrument for this mission called JUICE, due for launch in 2022 and scheduled to go into orbit around Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, in 2032. In recognition of her research contribution and leadership, she has received the Institute of Physics Chree medal in 2007, the Royal Society’s 2008 Hughes Medal, a prestigious Royal Society Research Professorship in 2014 and most recently the Royal Astronomical Society Gold medal in 2017.
Dr Weir will be Acting Head of Department from 1 July 2017 until 31 December 2017.
Dr Kenny Weir joined Imperial College as a lecturer in 1994. In the Department of Physics he held the role of Senior Tutor 1998-2002 and from 2005 has held the role of Associate Head of Department which from 2016 incorporated Director of Research. His research interests are in optical metrology, optical fibre sensors and biomimetics in photonics. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics.
John Neilson
College Secretary & Registrar