Announcements

Professor Ferri Aliabadi has accepted an extension to his appointment as Head of the Department of Aeronautics until 31 August 2017.

Professor Aliabadi joined Imperial as Professor of Aerostructures in 2005, having previously been Professor of Computational Mechanics and Director of Aerospace Engineering at Queen Mary, University of London. His research interests include the developments of computational methods for modelling materials and structures.

He was first appointed Head of the Department of Aeronautics in 2009.

Read Head of the Department of Aeronautics in full

Professor Dorothy Griffiths, OBE, has accepted appointment as Provost’s Envoy for Gender Equality until 31 August 2015. As Provost’s Envoy Professor Griffiths’ responsibilities will include chairing the College’s Athena Committee, advising the Provost and other senior staff on matters related to gender equality and sitting on the College’s Academic Gender Strategy Committee.

Professor Griffiths first joined Imperial in 1969 as a research assistant in its Industrial Sociology Unit, going on to become Deputy Principal and later Dean of Imperial College Business School before stepping down in January 2014 to chair the Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust.

Read Provost’s Envoy for Gender Equality in full

Professor Maggie Dallman has agreed to accept appointment as Associate Provost (Academic Partnerships), reporting to the Provost.  The process for selection of a successor to Professor Dallman as Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences will be launched immediately and Professor Dallman will take up the part-time Associate Provost position when her successor takes up appointment as Dean.

As Associate Provost (Academic Partnerships), Professor Dallman will support both the President and the Provost in their external academic engagements.  She will have particular responsibility for the College’s relationships with the Francis Crick Institute and the Climate Knowledge & Innovation Community, and the International Office will report to her.  Professor Dallman will chair the College’s Animal Welfare & Ethical Review Body, continue to chair the College’s Open Access Publishing Group and the Junior Research Fellowship Selection Committee, and provide senior support for the College’s engagement with schools and other universities.

Professor Dallman will also retain her professorship in immunology in the Faculty of Natural Sciences.

Read Associate Provost (Academic Partnerships) in full

Professor Tim Green, Professor of Electrical Power Engineering, has accepted appointment as Director of the Energy Futures Lab (EFL) with effect from 1 February 2014.  He has succeeded Professor Nigel Brandon OBE FREng, who led the EFL since its formation in 2005.

Tim Green joined the College as a lecturer in 1994 from Heriot-Watt University.   He became Professor of Electrical Power Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 2005, and has held the positions of Director of Undergraduate Studies and Deputy Head of Department. His research focuses on formulating the future structure of the UK’s electricity network, in order to support the incorporation of sources of low carbon energy. He leads the HubNet Supergen consortium of eight UK universities, which coordinates research on low carbon energy networks, and is the Network Champion for Research Councils UK.

Read Director of the Energy Futures Lab in full

Professor Jordan Nash, currently Head of the High Energy Physics group, has accepted the appointment as Head of the Department of Physics from 1 July 2014.

After a first degree at Carnegie-Mellon and a PhD from Stanford Professor Nash worked as a Scientific Associate at CERN and then joined Imperial College in 1992.  He was appointed as a Lecturer in 1994 and promoted to Reader in 2000.  He has been head of the High Energy Physics group since 2007. 

His research areas have included precision measurements in electroweak interactions and matter-antimatter asymmetry, and searches for Beyond Standard Model physics.  He held a PPARC Lecturer fellowship working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center on the BaBar experiment, and a CERN Senior Staff Scientist post working on the preparation of the CMS experiment at the LHC and leading the project preparing the upgrade of CMS for future high intensity running.

Professor Nash will succeed Professor Joanna Haigh FRS, who has served as Head of the Department of Physics since January 2009.

Read Head of the Department of Physics in full

Professor Alice P. Gast, currently President of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, has accepted appointment as the next President of Imperial College London in succession to Sir Keith O’Nions. Professor Gast will take up the appointment in September 2014.

Professor Gast has served as President of Lehigh University since 2006 following appointments at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she was Vice President for Research and Associate Provost and held the Robert T. Haslam chair in chemical engineering. She was previously at Stanford University from 1985 to 2001 as a professor of chemical engineering and as affiliated faculty at Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory. She has been a US Science Envoy to Central Asia and is currently a Board Director of the Chevron Corporation and Trustee of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia.

Professor Gast’s appointment concludes an international search for Imperial’s next President conducted by the Appointing Committee established by the Council in April 2012.

Professor Gast’s full biography is available at: www.imperial.ac.uk/president/president-designate

Read Appointment of the next President in full

Professor Martin Wilkins, Professor of Clinical Pharmacology, Head of the Division of Experimental Medicine, has accepted the appointment as the interim Head of Department of Medicine within the Faculty of Medicine for 12 months from 1 December 2013. Professor Wilkins is a clinician scientist with a background in clinical pharmacology and toxicology. His primary interest is in proof-of-concept studies in humans. He uses pulmonary hypertension as a paradigm for developing novel therapies from the laboratory to patients.

He has recently stepped down from his role a director of a major clinical program group in the Trust. He is the Director of the National Institute for Health Research/Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility [formerly the Sir John McMichael Centre] and  Director of the Wellcome Trust’s Translational Medicine Fellowship Training Programme. He is President of the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute, a Fellow of The British Pharmacology Society, Chairman of the BHF Fellowships Committee and Visiting Professor at ChaoYang Hospital in Beijing.

He will succeed Professor Gavin Screaton who has led the Department of Medicine since 1 January 2009. Professor Screaton has been seconded from his role as Head of Department to devote his full efforts to co-ordination of Faculty planning activities in his new role of Vice Dean (Academic Development).

Read Head of Department – Medicine in full

This year’s Julia Higgins Medal has been awarded to the Department of Chemistry, in recognition of its success in being the first College Department to be awarded a Gold Athena SWAN award.

The Julia Higgins Certificates have been awarded to Mr Rob Bell from the Human Resources Division, Dr Patricia Hunt from the Department of Chemistry, and the Learning and Development Centre.

The Medal and Certificates recognise individuals and departments that have made a significant contribution to the support of academic women at the College, selected by a subcommittee of the Provost’s Board. They are named in honour of Professor Dame Julia Higgins FRS, FREng, Professor of Polymer Science, now a Senior Research Investigator in Chemical Engineering and previously Dean of the City and Guilds College and Principal of the Faculty of Engineering.

Read The Julia Higgins Awards in full