Announcements

Professor Sue Gibson, Chair in Chemistry and Director of the Graduate School, has accepted appointment as Acting Vice-Provost (Education) from 13 November 2015 until a permanent successor to Professor Debra Humphris has taken up appointment.

In her role Professor Gibson will be responsible for providing leadership to the implementation and continuing development of the College’s Education and Student Strategy, in the context of the College’s mission to achieve enduring excellence in research and education in science, engineering, medicine and business for the benefit of society.

Professor Gibson joined the College in 1990, and assumed the role of Director of the Graduate School at Imperial College in 2013. Her research focused on transition metal chemistry and its applications in organic synthesis, and in 2013 she was awarded the OBE for services to Chemistry and Science Education.

John Neilson
College Secretary & Registrar

Read Acting Vice-Provost (Education) in full

The College is pleased to announce that the following academic staff were successful in the 2015 promotions round. Promotions took effect from 1 August 2015.

Business School

Faculty of Engineering

Faculty of Medicine

Faculty of Natural Sciences

John Neilson

College Secretary & Registrar

Read Academic Promotions Round 2015 in full

Dr Roberto Trotta, Senior Lecturer in Astrophysics, has accepted appointment as the new Director of the Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication. Dr Trotta will take up the role from 1 October 2015 and will report to the Vice Provost (Education).

Dr Trotta is a Senior Lecturer in Astrophysics at Imperial College London, where he studies dark matter, dark energy and the Big Bang, and an STFC Public Engagement Fellow. He was born and grew up in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. After obtaining an MSc(Hons) in Physics from ETH  Zurich and a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Geneva, he moved to Oxford where he was the Lockyer Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society at Oxford University, and a Junior Fellow of St Anne’s, before being appointed at Imperial College in 2008.

He is a passionate science communicator and the recipient of numerous awards for his research, outreach and art and science collaborations, including the Lord Kelvin Award of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Michelson Prize of Case Western Reserve University. His award-winning first book for the public, “The Edge of the Sky: All you need to know about the All-There-Is”, endeavours to explain the Universe using only the most common 1,000 words in English. Roberto was named as one of the 100 Global Thinkers 2014 by Foreign Policy magazine (Nov 2014), for “junking astronomy jargon”.

John Neilson

College Secretary & Registrar

Read New Director of the Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication in full

Election of Consuls

Professor Myra McClure, Professor of Retrovirology in the Department of Medicine, has been elected to succeed Professor Richard Thompson as the Senior Consul from 1 September 2015 to 31 August 2016.

Professor Terry Tetley, Professor of Lung Cell Biology in the National Heart and Lung Institute, has been elected to succeed Professor McClure as non-clinical Consul for the Faculty of Medicine from 1 September 2015 to 31 August 2018.

Professor Marek Sergot, Professor of Computational Logic in the Department of Computing, has been elected to succeed Professor Richard Jardine as one of the Consuls for the Faculty of Engineering and the Business School from 1 September 2015 to 31 August 2018.

The full list of Consuls for 2015-2016 is below:

Elected staff member on the Council

Professor Neil Alford, Vice Dean for Research in the Faculty of Engineering and Acting Vice-Provost (Research) from 1 September 2015, has been elected to succeed Professor Nigel Gooderham as the Elected Staff Member on Council from 1 September 2015 to 31 August 2017.

John Neilson

College Secretary & Registrar

Read Election of Consuls and staff member on the Council in full

On 1 August 2015 the College’s local pay scales will be uprated to provide a flat rate increase of £450 to salary spine points from 1 to 38. More than 5,000 of the College’s staff will receive an increase ranging between 1.0% and 2.5% as a result of this flat rate addition to the salary spine.

The salary points from 39 and above, and all fixed salaries that are contractually subject to a cost of living award, will be increased by 1%.

Also with effect from 1 August 2015, the College will implement a revised rate for contract workers and regular casual workers (not Students’ Union casuals) who are deployed primarily on Imperial College activities, duties and responsibilities. The College will set a standard minimum full time salary of not less than £18,000, including London Allowance, pro-rated for part-time staff. This equates to an hourly rate of £9.23 per hour, increased from the current rate of £8.04 per hour. This rate will be reviewed annually, as part of the College’s local pay bargaining process, against internal and external benchmarks and relativities

This award is implemented on 1 August as the College’s best and final offer. The offer has been accepted by UNISON and UNITE and UCU are considering their position.

View details of the Local Pay Bargaining negotiations.

Read Imperial College Local Pay Award 2015-16 in full

Professor Marina Botto, Professor of Rheumatology in the Department of Medicine, has accepted appointment as the Director of Bioservices from 20 July 2015.

In her role of Director of Bioservices, Professor Botto will report to the Provost and will have overall responsibility for animal care and for the College’s animal research strategy, as well as continued implementation of the College’s Action Plan for Animal Research. This includes delivery of the highest standards of animal welfare in research and continued commitment to the replacement, reduction and refinement of the use of animals in research (the 3Rs). Professor Botto will chair the Central Biological Services Management and Strategy Committee and be a member of the Governance Board for Animal Research.

Professor Botto will hold the role of Director of Bioservices alongside her role as Director of the Centre for Complement and Inflammation Research in the Department of Medicine. Professor Botto joined the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (now Imperial College London) in 1995 as a Lecturer. She was promoted to Professor in 2003.

John Neilson

College Secretary & Registrar

Read Director of Bioservices in full

Professor Neil Alford, Vice Dean for Research, Faculty of Engineering, has accepted appointment as Acting Vice-Provost (Research) from 1 September 2015, until a permanent successor to Professor Donal Bradley has taken up appointment.

In this role Professor Alford will be responsible for developing and providing leadership to the delivery of the College’s research strategy, and for enhancing the quality, impact, management and delivery of research in the College.

Professor Alford joined the College in 2007, and since then he has occupied a number of leadership positions. Professor Alford was, until July 2015, Head of the Department of Materials, and he remains Vice Dean for Research in the Faculty of Engineering. His research focuses on Functional Materials, and in 2013 he was awarded the MBE for services to Engineering.

John Neilson

College Secretary & Registrar

Read Acting Vice-Provost (Research) in full

Mr Marc Gray joined the College as Operational Excellence Programme Director on 29 June 2015.

Reporting to the Provost, Marc will direct and oversee the development and implementation of a growing number of Operational Excellence (OE) projects and programmes. Current projects already in progress include the Student Information Management Programme (SIMP), eRecruitment, Library Services Projects, the Space Programme, and the Building Maintenance Project.

Marc joins the College from BAE Systems, where he spent 15 years in a variety of roles leading complex change and improvement programmes across engineering, operations and support services businesses, both within the UK and internationally.

John Neilson
College Secretary & Registrar

Read Operational Excellence Programme Director in full

Head of the Department of Computing

Professor Susan Eisenbach has accepted an extension to her appointment as Head of the Department of Computing until 31 August 2016.

Professor Eisenbach joined the College as a Lecturer in 1983. Her current research interests are about program correctness.

She was first appointed Head of the Department of Computing in 2010.

Head of the Department of Medicine

Professor Martin Wilkins has accepted an extension to his appointment as Head of the Department of Medicine until 31 July 2020.

Professor Wilkins joined the College as a Senior Lecturer in 1990. His primary research interest is the pathological basis of pulmonary hypertension and its treatment, and he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2015.

He was first appointed Head of the Department of Medicine in 2013.

Director of the Institute for Security Science and Technology

Professor Chris Hankin has accepted an extension to his appointment as Director of the Institute for Security Science and Technology until 31 July 2017.

Professor Hankin joined the College as a Lecturer in 1984. He is a theoretical computer scientist and he has focused on the security of computer programs and systems over the last 15 years.

He was first appointed Director of the Institute for Security Science and Technology in 2010.

Provost’s Envoy for Gender Equality

Professor Dorothy Griffiths has accepted an extension to her appointment as Provost’s Envoy for Gender Equality until 31 December 2016.

Professor Griffiths joined the College as a Research Assistant in 1969, and went on to become Dean of Imperial College Business School, before stepping down in 2013 and becoming the chair of the Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust.

She was first appointed Provost’s Envoy for Gender Equality in 2014.

John Neilson

College Secretary & Registrar

Read Extensions to Senior Appointments in full