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Director of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences appointed

27 June 2005

The University of Cambridge announced today the appointment of Professor Sir David James Wallace as the Director of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences and NM Rothschild & Sons Professor of Mathematical Sciences. Professor Wallace is expected to be in post at Cambridge in October 2006 and will succeed Professor Sir John Kingman who has served as Director since October 2001.

Professor Sir David James Wallace has been the Vice-Chancellor of Loughborough University since January 1994.

"I am delighted to welcome Professor Wallace as the new Director of the Isaac Newton for Mathematical Sciences," said Professor Alison Richard, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. "He brings with him a wealth of knowledge and experience from links with both academia and industry. His breadth of vision and distinguished academic career are a wonderful combination for the leader of the Institute, which is devoted to research in the Mathematical Sciences in the broadest sense."

"The Isaac Newton Institute is a national centre of international significance and I am fortunate and privileged to be joining it as its Director. My 12 years at Loughborough have been immensely fulfilling and I could not imagine a more exciting prospect to follow them than working and living in Cambridge," said Professor Wallace.

Notes for Editors:

Following undergraduate and postgraduate study in theoretical physics at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Wallace continued research at Princeton University as a Harkness Fellow. In 1972 he was appointed as lecturer in the Physics Department at the University of Southampton. In 1979 he returned to the University of Edinburgh as Tait Professor of Mathematical Physics. He was also Director of Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre.

He is Treasurer and Vice-President of the Royal Society, has served as President of the Institute of Physics, and is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Chair of the UK e-Science Steering Committee, and a Deputy Lieutenant of Leicestershire. He has served as a member of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, and as an Expert to the European Commission in a number of areas. His non-Executive Directorships have included the Scottish Life Assurance Company, and Taylor and Francis Group plc. He was awarded a CBE for services to parallel computing in 1996, and was knighted in 2004 for services to UK science, technology and engineering.

For more information, contact:

• Corina Hadjiodysseos, Press and Publications Office,University of Cambridge Tel: 01223 332300, email:ch250@cam.ac.uk