Professor Ian Walmsley FRS has accepted appointment as Imperial’s next Provost, taking over from Professor James Stirling CBE FRS from 1 September 2018.
Professor Walmsley joins Imperial from the University of Oxford where he is currently Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) and Hooke Professor of Experimental Physics.
He graduated from Imperial with first class honours in physics in 1980, and completed his PhD at the University of Rochester. Professor Walmsley became Assistant Professor of Optics at the University of Rochester in 1988, and held a number of roles there before joining the University of Oxford in 2001 as Professor of Experimental Physics. He became Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) in 2009, and was appointed to his current role of Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) in 2015.
Professor Walmsley was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2012 for his contributions to quantum optics and ultrafast optics. He has held a number of leadership roles in the Optical Society of America, currently serving as President. Professor Walmsley was a member of the EPSRC Physics Strategic Advisory Team and was on the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics’ Science Advisory Board.