2017 Press Releases
Two major appointments for UCC
University College Cork has appointed two new Heads of College at the University today (Tuesday April 11).
The University’s Governing Body ratified the appointment of Professor Helen Whelton, Head of College, College of Medicine and Health and Professor Chris Williams as Head of College, College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Science.
Helen Whelton BDS PhD MDPH DTLHE FFD FFPHM, who will take up her position on October 2, 2017, has been Dean of the School of Dentistry, University of Leeds, UK since 2013. She is Professor of Dental Public Health and Preventive Dentistry in the University of Leeds and holds Honorary Consultant appointments with the NHS and Public Health England.
Professor Whelton is a member of Health Education England’s West Yorkshire Academic Training Committee. She is the Internationalisation lead for the Faculty of Medicine and Health in the University of Leeds and an elected member of the University Court.
In Leeds she is PI of a large EU H 2020 grant to explore the use of Big Data in dentistry, involving eight national and private insurers in six EU countries.
Professor Whelton is an Adjunct Professor at UCC where she directs a national oral health research programme funded by the HRB. She is a member of the Irish Specialist Advisory Committee for Dental Public Health.
Her research has been recognised by a number of international research awards including the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) Distinguished Scientist Award (2011), the IADR Oral Health Research Group Award (2010) and the European Organisation for Caries Research (ORCA) Zsolnay Prize (2009). She is a member of the editorial boards of the British Dental Journal and BDJ Open.
Professor Whelton was previously a staff member at UCC. She was formerly Vice Head of the College, Dean of the Graduate School in the College of Medicine and Health, Professor of Dental Public Health and Director of the Oral Health Services Research Centre which is a WHO Collaborating Centre.
Outside of dentistry she has served on the board of the Irish Health Research Board, the National Obesity Task Force and the Irish Women’s Health Council. She is a recent past President of the International Association for Dental Research, which is the largest global dental research organisation and based in Washington DC.
Chris Williams, BA PhD, who will take up his new role on September 1 2017, read Modern History at Balliol College, Oxford before studying for his PhD at University College Cardiff.
He was appointed to a lectureship in British History at Cardiff in 1988 and to a chair at the University of Glamorgan in 2001.
Between 2005 and 2013 he was Professor of Welsh History at Swansea University, and during that time was also Director of the Research Institute for Arts and Humanities and Deputy Head of the College of Arts and Humanities at Swansea.
From 2013 he has been Professor of History and Head of the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University.
Since 2008 he has been a Royal Commissioner with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales.
He was a Research Excellence Framework sub-panel member for History in the UK’s REF2014 exercise, is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.
He has written on many modern British and Welsh historical topics including the South Wales miners, the Labour Party, Robert Owen, the Chartist movement, rugby union, mountaineering and political cartooning. For Yale University Press he edited the diaries of the actor Richard Burton, published in 2012.
Two major appointments made in UCC today. Read: https://t.co/p85xPU8Sjm pic.twitter.com/iy8iBREMjo
— UCC Ireland (@UCC) April 11, 2017
For more on this story contact:
Ruth Mc Donnell, Head of Media and PR, Office of Marketing and Communications, UCC Mob: 086-0468950