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New appointments to UCL's senior management team

4 December 2009

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Professor Stephen Caddick ucl.ac.uk/enterprise/" target="_self">UCL Enterprise
  • Faculty of Engineering Sciences
  • UCL President and Provost Professor Malcolm Grant today announced two new appointments to the university's senior management team.

    Professor Stephen Caddick, Head of UCL Chemistry, will succeed Professor Mike Spyer as Vice-Provost (Enterprise) upon Professor Spyer's retirement on 1 May 2010.

    In the role of Vice-Provost (Enterprise), Professor Caddick will be responsible for leading UCL's enterprise agenda, which specifically entails raising the profile of entrepreneurial activities; promoting academic and industry liaison; maximising revenue from the commercialisation of research technology; the capitalisation of intellectual property; and establishing and developing spin-out companies and clinical trial activities, among other duties.

    Professor Caddick is Head of UCL Chemistry and Director of the Centre for Chemical Biology at UCL. He has a major research group in Organic Synthesis and Chemical Biology, with a particular focus on the development of novel and sustainable synthetic methods for applications in biological and biomedical research. He led the development of the UCL Chemistry Drug Discovery PhD programme, is part of the group that bid successfully for a Wellcome Trust Interdisciplinary PhD programme and a member of the team that attracted a Wellcome Trust award to develop a treatment for septic shock. He is currently playing a key role in developing the unique contribution UCL will make to the UK Centre for Medical Research & Innovation (UKCMRI), which will bring the university together with three other world-leading biomedical research organisations (Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust) in central London to undertake cutting-edge research and to train of medical scientists to advance the understanding of health and disease.

    Professor Caddick is a member of the MRC's Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme Panel and its Technology's Drug Discovery Scientific Advisory Board. He has previously served on several research council committees and panels, including the MRC Discipline Hopping Committee and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's Biomolecular Sciences Committee.

    Professor Anthony Finkelstein (Head of UCL Computer Science) will assume the role of Dean of Engineering Sciences, with effect from 1 September 2010. He will build on the work of the outgoing Dean, Professor Bernard Buxton, leading the Faculty of Engineering Sciences and undertaking the principal duties of advising the Provost and Vice-Provosts on the faculty's academic strategy and resources.

    Professor Finkelstein established the research group in software systems engineering at UCL. His research covers a broad span of work with a central theme of large-scale system modelling. This has included applications of advanced software technology in defence, medicine, physiology, space science and telecommunications. Within UCL he has taken a particular interest in information services and is very engaged in work in this area. Professor Finkelstein has been active in consulting and has an involvement in two UCL spin-out companies. He was a winner of the 2009 UCL Entrepreneurial Spirit award.

    Professor Finkelstein has received numerous accolades, most recently the Institution of Engineering and Technology's Oliver Lodge Medal in July 2009, which recognises outstanding and sustained excellence in work in the area of information technology. He is a Fellow of the IET and of the British Computer Society and is active in both. He served on the UK Research Assessment Exercise panel for Computer Science and Informatics and was a member of the Committee of Visitors for the US National Science Foundation as part of a large range of activities in the international engineering community.

    Professor Grant said: "I am delighted that Professors Caddick and Finkelstein have agreed to take on these challenging responsibilities and will be joining UCL's senior management team. They both have outstanding track records in research and in its application. This, together with their proven leadership abilities, will allow us to develop further UCL's great strengths in technology and innovation, and our support for the UK's very significant industrial base."