Bologna process speaker biographies
Find out more about those speaking at this event
Professor Peter Main
Professor Peter Main joined the Institute of Physics in 2002 after more than twenty years as an academic in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nottingham, the last two as Head of School. His research interests were in quantum fluids, low temperature physics, semiconductors, low-dimensional structures and the use of high magnetic fields. He published more than 300 scientific papers and given more than 60 scientific talks.
He was also largely responsible for a number of teaching innovations that attracted national attention. Just before leaving Nottingham he was internationally famous, albeit briefly, for his involvement in levitating a frog. He is now Director of Education and Science at the Institute and has overall responsibility for education, including schools and universities, diversity, outreach, the Institute’s scientific activity and science policy.
Rachel Green
Rachel Green started her career in the Civil Service in the Department of Employment. An early secondment to the European Commission in Brussels led subsequently to posts in the Department with an EU focus, including as Head of the European Social Fund Unit. In 1994 she went on secondment to the Foreign and Commonweatlh Office as Labour and Social Affairs Attache in the British Embassy, Bonn, relocating to Berlin in 1999.
On returning to London in 2000 she took a post in the European Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. She joined the Higher Education Directorate in Department for Education Skills (now Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills) in May 2003 as Deputy Director, Higher Education Strategy and Implementation Group.
Mary Ritter
Mary Ritter was appointed Pro-Rector for Postgraduate Affairs at Imperial College London in October 2004, and added the International portfolio in October 2005. She headed the Department of Immunology from 2004-2006, and from 1999 to February 2006 was Director of the Graduate School of Life Sciences and Medicine (GSLSM) at Imperial.
After a BA in Zoology and DPhil in Immunology from the University of Oxford, and Research Fellowships at the University of Connecticut, USA and Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London UK, she took up an academic post at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School – now the Hammersmith Campus of Imperial College London, following the 1997 merger. Her research programme centres on the development of the immune system, and she has supervised more than 40 PhD and Masters’ students, all of whom have successfully gained their degree.
She was the founding Director of the GSLSM at Imperial College, steering the Graduate School through from inception in 1999 to its current overarching role providing interdisciplinary research activities, an extensive skills training programme and quality assurance for all the postgraduate students in the Faculties of Life Sciences and Faculty of Medicine. She subsequently helped to establish Imperial’s second Graduate School, of Engineering and Physical Sciences, launched in 2002. She initiated and is closely involved in both the design and delivery of the Graduate Schools’ postgraduate skills training programme. In addition, she has established new academic taught courses at both bachelor’s and master’s level and regularly teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students in her specialist area of immunology as well as running workshops in transferable skills. She is Chair of Imperial’s ‘Bologna Task Force’.
She sits on a number of national and international committees including the UK Medical Research Council’s Non-Clinical Careers Training and Development Panel, the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s Modular Training for Industry Panel, The Academy of Medical Sciences’ Academic Careers Committee (non-clinical) and the Programme Review Committee for the Cambridge-MIT Institute. She chairs the UK Research Councils’ “UK GRAD” Steering Committee and the UKIERI Evaluation panel, and has been a member of external evaluation and review panels for universities in Finland, Germany and France.
Richard Shearman
Richard Shearman has been Director of Formation and Deputy Chief Executive of Engineering Council (UK) since its establishment in March 2002, having previously held a similar role in the former Engineering Council. He leads EC (UK)’s work on the education and development of professional engineers and engineering technicians and the maintenance of the United Kingdom Standard for Professional Engineering Competence (UK-SPEC), and on international issues.
Although his career has been punctuated by occasional forays into politics and the history of art, most of it has been spent in the field of education and training policy, initially within the old Department of Education and Science and then for 10 years as Director of Education at the Design Council. He chairs the Advisory Board for the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Engineering at Loughborough University.
Jessica Olley
Jessica Olley was appointed Acting Manager of the UK HE Europe Unit in September 2006. Launched in January 2004, the Europe Unit acts as a European observatory and raises awareness of European issues throughout the HE sector. The Unit aims to strengthen the position of the UK HE sector in European debates. Previously, Jessica was EU/Bologna Process Policy Officer for the Europe Unit. She also worked in the European Commission and the European Parliament in Brussels for three years. She is fluent in French and German.
Professor Kel Fidler
Professor Kel Fidler is Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of University of Northumbria at Newcastle, the largest university in the North East region, having over 31,000 students.
He joined Northumbria in September 2001 from the University of York, where he had been Deputy Vice-Chancellor. An Engineer by background, Kel gained his first degree at King’s College, Durham University, and completed his PhD at Newcastle University. After a spell as a Senior Research Associate at Durham, he took a Lectureship at Essex University in 1969. He left Essex as Chairman of the Electrical Engineering Science Department in 1984 to a Chair in Electronics at the Open University where he subsequently became Head of the Electronics Discipline.
In 1989 the call of the North took him to a Chair at the University of York, where he became Head of Electronics, and subsequently Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor with particular responsibility for Teaching and Learning. A career-long researcher, Professor Fidler’s main interests have been in Circuit Theory, Filter Design, Computer-Aided Circuit Design, and Circuit Modelling – particularly for telephone fault location and Broadband validation.
Kel is Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He currently is Chairman of the Engineering Council UK (ECUK), a member of the Engineering Technology Board (ETB), a member of the regional Science and Industry Council, a Board member of the NewcastleGateshead Initiative (NGi), and is Vice-President of the Conference of Independent Further Education (CIFE).
Professor David A Nethercot OBE
Professor David A Nethercot OBE, PhD, DSc, FREng, FIStructE, FICE, FCGI, FRSA, is Head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London, and has more than thirty years experience of research, specialised advisory work and committee activity in the area of steel, aluminium and composite construction. He was previously on the staff at Cardiff, Sheffield and Nottingham Universities, including 5 years as Head of Department at Nottingham.
Ten of his papers have won Institution prizes. He was awarded a DSc degree in 1993 and elected to the Royal Academy of Engineering in that same year. He is a Past President of the Institution of Structural Engineers and a former Council Member of the Royal Academy of Engineering.A former member and chairman of the JBM, responsible for professional accreditation of Civil Engineering courses in the UK and several overseas countries, he is also recently retired from the HKIE’s Accreditation Board.
For the RAEng, he was a member of the groups responsible for the studies “Measuring Excellence in Engineering Research” and “Educating Engineers for the 21st Century” as well as chairing the group that produced “ A Statement on Postgraduate Research”. He has been an external examiner or reviewer for several engineering departments in the UK and in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Switzerland, Italy, Ireland etc.