Blog posts

Associate Dean of Programmes, Business School

Ms Leila Guerra has accepted the appointment of Associate Dean of Programmes at the Business School from 15 March 2018.

Reporting to the Dean, Leila will develop and lead implementation of the vision, strategy and long-term plans for the MBA and MSc programmes, as well as developing and implementing new programmes.

Leila joins the College from Singapore Management University where, as Assistant Dean for postgraduate programmes, she has led the Business School’s postgraduate portfolio of degree programmes and professional doctorates, managing marketing, recruitment and admissions, programme management, rankings, and career services. Leila holds an MSc in International Business from the Carlos III University of Madrid and an Executive MBA from IE Business School in Madrid.

Interim Head of the School of Public Health

Professor Deborah Ashby, Chair in Medical Statistics and Clinical Trials, has accepted appointment as Interim Head of the School of Public Health from 1 January 2018, until a permanent successor to Professor Elio Riboli has taken up appointment.

Professor Ashby joined the College in 2008, and since then she has occupied a number of leadership positions, including Co-Director of the Imperial Clinical Trials Unit.

Her research focuses on clinical trials, risk-benefit decision making for medicines, and the utility of Bayesian approaches in these areas. Professor Ashby was awarded an OBE for services to medicine in 2009 and was appointed an NIHR Senior Investigator in 2010. She was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2012 and is President-Elect of the Royal Statistical Society.

Vice-Dean (Research), Faculty of Medicine

Professor Martin Wilkins FMedSci has taken up appointment as Vice-Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Medicine, with effect from 1 October 2017, for a period of 5 years.

Reporting to the Dean, Professor Wilkins will play a key role in identifying and determining Faculty strategy and leading organisational activity to support strategic research activity.

Professor Wilkins joined the then-Royal Postgraduate Medical School in 1990 as a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacology (the School merged with Imperial in 1997). He is currently Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Head of the Department of Medicine. Professor Wilkins will also continue as Director of the NIHR Imperial Clinical Research Facility at the Hammersmith Campus. His research is focused on the pathogenesis of pulmonary hypertension and the development of new treatments for this condition.

Faculty Operating Officer for the Faculty of Medicine

Dr Chris Watkins has accepted appointment as Faculty Operating Officer (FOO) for the Faculty of
Medicine from 9 October 2017.

Reporting to the Acting Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Chris will play a key role in supporting and
enabling the Faculty to set and meet its academic education and research objectives. He will have
overall responsibility for effective and efficient governance and for the delivery of operational and
support services to staff within the Faculty.

Chris joins the College from the Medical Research Council (MRC), where he is currently the
Director of Innovation, a member of the senior executive team and of the MRC’s Management
Board. In this role he has led on numerous strategic, policy and research issues; collaborative
initiatives; and stakeholder engagement with a wide range of academic, industrial, funder and
public sector organisations. Alongside this, he was recently Head of Knowledge Exchange for the
Francis Crick Institute as a 50% secondment for two years.

New Acting Dean of The Faculty of Medicine

Professor Jonathan Weber, Vice-Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Medicine, has accepted appointment as Acting Dean of the Faculty of Medicine from 1 October 2017, when Professor Gavin Screaton takes up his new position as Head of the Division of Medical Sciences at the University of Oxford.

An international search will be launching soon to appoint a new Dean to succeed Professor Screaton.

Professor Weber has been Jefferiss Professor of Communicable Diseases and GU Medicine at Imperial since 1991. He has held the role of Vice-Dean for Research since 2013, having previously been Deputy Principal (Research) from 2011. Professor Weber was appointed Director of Imperial College Academic Health Science Centre in 2014.

 

College Consuls and Staff Representative on Council

Professor Peter Lindstedt, Professor of Thermofluids in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been elected to succeed Professor Myra McClure as Senior Consul for the period 1 September 2017 to 31 August 2018.

Professor Jonathan Mestel, Professor of Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics, has been elected to succeed Professor John Seddon as one of the Consuls for the Faculty of Natural Sciences and the Education Office from 1 September 2017 to 31 August 2020.
Professor Susan Eisenbach, Professor of Computing, has been elected as the Staff Representative on Council for the period 1 September 2017 to 31 August 2019. Professor Eisenbach replaces Professor Neil Alford.

The full list of Consuls for 2017-18 is below:
Senior Consul Professor Peter Lindstedt
Faculty of Engineering and the Business School Professor Yun Xu
Faculty of Engineering and the Business School Professor Marek Sergot
Faculty of Medicine (non-clinical) Professor Terry Tetley
Faculty of Medicine (clinical) Professor Peter Openshaw
Faculty of Natural Sciences and the Education Office Professor Lesley Cohen
Faculty of Natural Sciences and the Education Office Professor Jonathan Mestel

Assistant Provost (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion)

Professor Stephen Curry, Professor of Structural Biology, Department of Life Sciences, is to take up the new half-time post of Assistant Provost (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) on 1 October 2017, for an initial period of two years.

Reporting to the Provost, Professor Curry will help lead the College’s commitment to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion for staff and students across all protected characteristics. In this new role, Professor Curry will be responsible for engaging with senior leadership and colleagues across College to help facilitate appropriate and necessary cultural change, and will continue the gender equality work that has been spearheaded until now by Professor Dorothy Griffiths.

Professor Curry first joined Imperial as an undergraduate and was also awarded his PhD by the College. After undertaking several research posts in Europe and the USA, he became a Lecturer in Biophysics at Imperial in 1995. Subsequently, he was promoted to Reader and then Professor of Structural Biology. Professor Curry is currently Chair of the Equal Opportunities Committee in the Department of Life Sciences, and he held the role of Director of Undergraduate Studies in the department from 2011-2015.

Professor Curry’s research interests range from protein-drug interactions to the replication mechanisms of RNA viruses, including major pathogens such as foot and mouth disease virus and human norovirus. More recently, his research has focused on the culture of academia, and he has published papers on the use of citation metrics and the history of scholarly publication. He is active in public engagement work and writes regularly on science and science policy for the Guardian.

Changes to Campus Services provision

The College is making some changes to how and where some services are provided on campus. The changes are being made to enable reinvestment elsewhere as part of our continuing commitment to an excellent student and staff experience.

The Campus Services team aims to provide the best possible service and experience for our staff and student community, through everything from catering outlets and hospitality services, to sports facilities, student accommodation, the Student Hub, and Early Years provision.

These services operate at a loss – they are subsidised by millions of pounds a year to try and keep prices cheaper than the high street. College therefore regularly looks for ways to offset those costs, where services are under-used or not cost-effective. Only changes which clearly enable reinvestment to the wider benefit of the community, against a minimal impact on staff and students, are considered.

The new changes being introduced mainly consist of shorter opening hours for some outlets, and reducing some cooked meal options. Some of the changes have already taken place, while others will be coming in over July and August.

Find out more about the changes

Local pay award

Following the College’s final pay offer dated 2 June 2017, the Joint Trades Unions (JTUs) have confirmed their formal acceptance of the College’s local pay offer. A tapered rise will be applied of 3% to spine point 1, 2.5% to spine point 2 and an increase of 2% to all pay up to £67,110 p.a. and 0.5% on the balance of earnings above £67,110 p.a. This increase is effective from 1 August 2017 and applies to all spine points and fixed salaries subject to the local pay award.

Details of the local pay bargaining negotiations are available to view. The revised salary scales are also available.