The University of Queensland`s Vice-Chancellor, Professor John Hay, AC, has announced the appointment of Dr Stephen Walker as Professor and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Physical Sciences and Architecture from February 21, 2006.
Dr Walker, who is currently the Executive Director, Engineering and Environmental Sciences at the Australian Research Council (ARC) in Canberra, acted as Chief Executive Officer of the ARC for a substantial part of 2004.
He succeeds Professor Michael Keniger who took up the appointment of Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at UQ in July.
Professor Hay said Dr Walker would be an important addition to UQ`s executive team as he brought with him extensive and diverse experience working with both government and private sector agencies.
“In his role as Executive Director of the ARC, he has been responsible for the management of research funding and policy in the broad area of engineering and environmental sciences across all ARC funding schemes, and for management of the ARC Linkage Projects program across all discipline areas,” Professor Hay said.
“Dr Walker has had frequent interactions with all levels of national and international research communities, seeking and receiving assessment advice and participating in performance reviews of larger ARC funded research programs such as chairing review panels for five ARC Special Research Centres in 2002.
“He has been involved with policy advice to government on the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy and on the processes for developing the Research Quality Framework.”
Dr Walker graduated with a Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours from the University of Sydney in 1980. He completed his PhD in Medicine at the
University of Tasmania in 1985 with a thesis on Epicardial potential distributions calculated from body surface measurements using multiple torso models.
The majority of Dr Walker`s career has been in the CSIRO where he was a Senior and then a Principal Research Scientist in the Division of Oceanography from 1987 to 1997. During that time he developed three-dimensional, non-linear variable density hydrodynamic models for coastal and estuarine dispersion studies.
He was then a Principal Research Scientist in marine research for two years, where he led a team of 10 researchers developing and applying physical and biogeochemical numerical models to environmental issues in shelf, coastal and estuarine systems.
From late 1999 until February 2001 he was the Senior Research Scientist in Aquatic Systems/Environmental Modelling across two Divisions of CSIRO, operating out of both Canberra and Hobart. He was also the Australian representative on UNESCO`s International Oceanographic Commission.
Media: For more information or photos, contact Chris Saxby at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2479, email c.saxby@uq.edu.au).
