Sir Gerry McCormac | |
---|---|
Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Stirling | |
Assumed office 1 May 2010 | |
Preceded by | Christine Hallett |
Personal details | |
Born | Belfast,County Antrim,Northern Ireland | 1 August 1958
Spouse | Louise Gormley |
Children | Three sons |
Residence(s) | Stirling,Scotland |
Alma mater | Ulster Polytechnic (BSc,PhD) |
Profession | Physicist,academic administrator |
Salary | £295,000 (2021–22) [1] |
Website | https://www.stir.ac.uk/about/senior-officers-of-the-university/gerry-mccormac/ |
Sir Francis Gerard McCormac, FRSE,FSA,FRSA,FHEA (born 1 August 1958) is the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Stirling. [2] [3] He is a physicist whose specialist fields are space physics and carbon dating. [4] [5] He is a member of the advisory board of the International College for Liberal Arts [6] at Yamanashi Gakuin University in Japan. Previous roles include Professor and Pro Vice-Chancellor at Queen's University Belfast [7] and Vice-Chairman of Invest Northern Ireland. He chaired a review of teacher employment for the Scottish Government in 2011. [8]
He was born in Belfast,County Antrim,Northern Ireland on 1 August 1958,the eldest of seven children of Francis McCormac and Jean Heaney. [9] He attended St. Kevin's Primary School on the Falls Road where his P6 teacher inspired him to develop a career in science. [10]
He graduated in Physics and Geology (1980) and obtained a PhD in Physics (1984) from Ulster Polytechnic,before becoming a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan. [11] There he conducted research on the NASA Dynamics Explorer satellite program. He specialised in remote sensing of the atmosphere using Fabry–Pérot interferometers to measure thermospheric wind speeds and temperatures to assess their relationship to the Interplanetary Magnetic Field. Between 1990 and 2001,he was Director of the High-Precision Carbon Dating Facility at Queen's University Belfast and a lecturer and senior lecturer in Environmental Monitoring. During this period,he founded the Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork (CAF) [12] and the Centre for the Climate,Environment and Chronology (Chrono Centre). [13] He was a member of the Archaeology Committee of the Royal Irish Academy. He carbon dated monuments of international importance for English Heritage,Historic Scotland and the Environment and Heritage Service including;Stonehenge,the Pazyryk burials in Siberia,Seahenge near Sandringham,the Dover Bronze Age Boat,Sutton Hoo and New Grange.
He became head of the School of Archaeology and Palaeoecology in 1997 and Professor of Scientific Archaeology in 1998. As pro vice-chancellor (PVC) at Queen's from 2001 to 2010,he had responsibility for Academic and Financial Planning,Economic Development and External Affairs. He served on the Northern Ireland (NI) Committee of the Institute of Directors,the NI Economic Development Forum,the NI Science and Industry Panel (MATRIX) and the boards of both the NI Science Park and Business in the Community. He was a director and chair of the management board of Queen's University's commercialisation company,QUBIS. He was vice-chairman and a board member of Invest Northern Ireland from 2008 to 2014. In 2010 he became principal and vice-chancellor at the University of Stirling. He chaired a review of the terms and conditions of teacher employment [14] for the Scottish Government in 2011 and served as an external board member to oversee the merger of the Department of Employment and Learning and the Department for Enterprise,Trade and Investment to form the Department for the Economy [15] in Northern Ireland.
He is currently Vice-Convener [16] of Universities Scotland,a board member of the Universities and Colleges Employers' Association (UCEA) [17] and Chairman of the UCEA Scottish Committee,a member of Universities UK and a trustee of the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. He was Vice-Chairman of Bridge Integrated Primary School in Northern Ireland during the 1990s. McCormac was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2017. [18]
McCormac was knighted in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to education and the economy. [19]
The University of Stirling (Scots: University o Stirlin, Scottish Gaelic: Oilthigh Shruighlea is a public university in Stirling, Scotland, founded by royal charter in 1967. It is located in the Central Belt of Scotland, built within the walled Airthrey Castle estate.
Ulster University, legally the University of Ulster, is a multi-campus public research university located in Northern Ireland. It is often referred to informally and unofficially as Ulster, or by the abbreviation UU. It is the largest university in Northern Ireland and the second-largest university on the island of Ireland, after the federal National University of Ireland.
The Universities and Colleges Employers' Association (UCEA) is the employers' association for universities and colleges of higher education (HE) in the United Kingdom. It represents universities and HE colleges in national negotiations with the five sector trade unions, government bodies, funding councils and other stakeholders.
Sir Paul James Curran was president of City, University of London between August 2010 and June 2021. Sir Paul is now professor emeritus. Following a period of significant progress, City joined the University of London Federation in September 2016. He served previously as vice-chancellor of Bournemouth University (2005–10) and deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Southampton, where he is currently a visiting professor. As a member of the senior management team at Southampton, progressing from head of geography to dean of science, Curran was credited with high-profile leadership as head of the Winchester School of Art, part of the University of Southampton.
Sir Keith Burnett, CBE, FRS FLSW FINSTP is a British physicist and President Elect of the Institute of Physics. He is Chair of the Nuffield Foundation — an independent charitable trust with a mission to advance educational opportunity and social well-being, founding Chair of the Academic Council the Schmidt Science Fellows, and a member of the Board of international education providers Study Group.
Valerie Hall (1946-2016) was a Professor in Palaeoecology at Queen's University Belfast until her retirement in 2010, after which she remained a Professor Emerita. She gained a 2:2 in botany at Queen's University Belfast in 1968 and a PhD in Palaeoecology in 1989. She has produced a number of publications of which the best known may be Flora Hibernica, which she co-wrote along with J. Pilcher and published in 2001.
Steven Kenneth Chapman is Vice-Chancellor of Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia. Previously he was Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.
Andrea Nolan, is Professor of Veterinary Pharmacology and Principal & Vice Chancellor of Edinburgh Napier University. In 1999, she was the first woman ever appointed to head a British veterinary school.
Christopher F. Gaffney is a British archaeological geophysicist and is Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Bradford.
Robert Cormack FRSE is a Scottish emeritus professor who retired in late 2009 from the UHI Millennium Institute. He taught at Queen's University, Belfast where his service spanned the troubles in Northern Ireland. He became a leading specialist and author on equal opportunities, discrimination and public policy in Northern Ireland.
Patrick G. Johnston was a Northern Irish physician and a leading expert in cancer research. He was a professor of oncology at Queen's University Belfast, where he served as vice-chancellor and president from 1 March 2014, until his death.
Koenraad Lamberts is a British/Belgian psychologist and academic. Since 2018, he has served as President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield. From 2014 to 2018, he was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of York. Previously, he had taught at the University of Chicago, University of Birmingham, and the University of Warwick. Lamberts was chair of UCAS between 2019 and 2020. During his time at Sheffield, Lamberts oversaw the closure of its "world-renowned archaeology department".
Cara Carmichael Aitchison,, FWLA, FLSW is a British social scientist and university leader. She was President and Vice Chancellor of Cardiff Metropolitan University from 2016 to 2024, and was formerly Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive or Plymouth Marjon University in England (2013–2016). She was previously Dean of Moray House School of Education and Professor in Social and Environmental Justice at Edinburgh University in Scotland (2010–2013) and has an international research profile in the geography and cultural economy of leisure, sport and tourism and in gender studies, cultural identity and social inclusion.
Timothy Laurence Killeen is a British and American geophysicist, space physicist, professor, and university administrator. Killeen took office as the president of the University of Illinois system in 2015. He has been the principal investigator on research projects for NASA and the National Science Foundation. Killeen has authored more than 150 publications in peer-reviewed journals as well as more than 300 other publications and papers. He has served on various White House committees and task forces and is a past editor-in-chief of the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics.
Professor Sir Ian Andrew Greer is a Scottish medical doctor who is the 13th President and Vice-Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast and formerly Vice-President of the University of Manchester and Dean of the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences. He was Regius Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Glasgow 2001−2007, Dean at Hull York Medical School 2007–2010, then Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the University of Liverpool 2010−2015.
Roger G. H. Downer was an Irish educator, scientist, and writer who held a number of non-executive positions on private and public sector boards. He was a president emeritus at the University of Limerick and a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo.
Patrick Gerald McKenna, DL, FIBMS, FRSB, MRIA, known informally and widely as Gerry McKenna, is a Chartered Biologist and Chartered Scientist from Northern Ireland.
Alexandra Bayliss is a British archaeologist and academic. She is Head of Scientific Dating at Historic England, and a part-time Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Stirling in Scotland. Her research focuses on the construction of exact chronologies of European Neolithic archaeological sites, through the application of Bayesian statistical modelling of radiocarbon dates.