2005 Press Releases
UCC appoints Director of the Environmental Research Institute (ERI)
Dr Alan Dobson, Department of Microbiology, UCC, has been appointed
Director of the Environmental Research Institute at UCC. The ERI is
composed of four research centres: the Aquaculture & Fisheries
Development Centre (AFDC), the Aquatic Services Unit (ASU), the
Coastal & Marine Research Centre (CMRC) and the Cleaner Protection
Promotion Unit (CPPU) plus a range of focus areas covering 10 academic
departments over three Faculties. Currently, within the ERI there are
over 200 research projects funded through national and international
sources. This large volume of expertise and research activity provides
fertile ground for high-quality, multi-disciplinary environmental
research.
Dr Dobson received both his BSc and PhD in Biochemistry at NUIG, before
carrying out Post Doctoral Research at Baylor College of Medicine in
Houston Texas. He returned to UCC in 1988 to work in the Microbiology
Department.
Dr Dobson's research interests are primarily in the area of
Environmental Biotechnology, particularly focusing on the physiology
and genetics of bacteria and fungi that can degrade toxic environmental
pollutants, on the microbiology of nutrient removal for waste streams
and more recently in environmental systems microbiology. To date,
he has published over 65 research papers in the biotechnology area.
In 1999 Dr Dobson was awarded the Royal Irish Academy Medal in
Microbiology and has recently been elected as a Fellow of the Institute
of Biology. He has served on many national and
international scientific committees and is currently a member of the
European Space Agency, Life and Physical Science Advisory Committee
(LPSAC).
Dr Dobson will be responsible for pulling together the various strands
of UCC's research under the umbrella of the ERI. With a critical
mass of researchers and a flagship Institute, UCC now has a huge
opportunity to consolidate its leadership position in Environmental
Research.
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