Dear colleagues,
I am delighted to inform you that we have appointed Professor David McGloin as the new Head of School of Natural and Computing Sciences.
David will join us on 1 September 2022 from the University of Technology Sydney where he is currently Director, Research Programs and Professor of Optical Physics. He leads the graduate program for the Faculty of Engineering and IT, where he supports more than 1000 research students and 300 academic staff across six academic Schools and runs a research lab focusing on applications of optical trapping in areas such as aerosol and biomedical science.
David has held a range of leadership roles including Head of Physics and Associate Dean – Research at the University of Dundee. He started his academic career in St. Andrews where he did his undergraduate and PhD degrees in the School of Physics and Astronomy before leaving academia to work for Dstl.
He re-joined St. Andrews as a postdoc and started his own lab with the award of a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. After spending a research sabbatical in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Washington he moved to the University of Dundee, where he spent more than a decade.
He was heavily involved with the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance during this time and did significant work on the REF submissions for the School of Engineering, Physics and Mathematics in 2014. He moved to Sydney in 2018 to explore new challenges and has successfully supported and developed the graduate program in engineering and IT.
"I am delighted to be joining Aberdeen as Head of School, a move that marks a return home geographically as well as returning me to my spiritual academic home in the natural and computing sciences. I am looking forward to getting to know colleagues in the School and finding out in more detail about the excellent work that is happening in the School, both in teaching and research.
“I am equally excited about working with you all to help you achieve your professional goals and to look at opportunities for growth across all aspects of the work we do.”
Professor David McGloin
I hope you will join me in welcoming David to the University and I look forward to working closely with him.
I would also like to extend my thanks to Professor Angel Cuesta Ciscar for his excellent service as Interim Head of School, and for his agreement to continue in that role until David starts.
Best wishes
Karl
Professor Karl Leydecker
Senior Vice-Principal