Wolfson appoints new President

The next President of Wolfson College is to be Professor Sir Gareth Roberts, FRS, currently Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield. Sir Gareth will succeed Sir David Smith, who leaves in September 2000. Sir Gareth (pictured left) began his academic career at the University College of North Wales, Bangor, where he obtained a first-class honours degree in physics, followed by a Ph.D. in 1964. He has held Chairs at the New University of Ulster and the University of Durham, and in 1986 he was appointed to a Visiting Professorship in the Department of Engineering Science at Oxford. Sir Gareth has held two industrial posts, as a senior research scientist with the Xerox Corporation and as Director of Research and Chief Scientist of THORN EMI, managing the Central Research Laboratories. He has an international reputation for his research on semiconductors and molecular electronics and has won several national awards. He was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1984 and presented the Royal Institution BBC Christmas Lectures in 1990. Sir Gareth was appointed Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield in 1991. In addition he is a Board Member of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, chairing its Research Committee, and he is President of the Institute of Physics. He is a previous Chairman of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals and a member of the Prime Minister's Advisory Council on Science and Technology.