Chair and Secretariat transition
At the end of April 2023, the role of IARU Chair and Secretariat passed from the University of Cambridge to the University of Cape Town. Since 2021, Cambridge has chaired IARU and provided the Secretariat team which manages the general administration of the Alliance. During its tenure, the projects that the Cambridge Secretariat has worked on include a survey of IARU members, establishing the new Education Committee, launching the Early-Career Collaboration Grants scheme and creating a newsletter for the IARU community.
On handing over the Secretariat duties to UCT, Cambridge IARU Senior Officer, Dr. Karen Kennedy, remarked:
“Cambridge has been delighted to serve the IARU community as Chair and Secretariat, benefitting greatly from the guidance and experience of our predecessors, the University of Tokyo. It has been especially rewarding to oversee the return to in-person meetings and activities as we have emerged from the restrictions of the pandemic years. We look forward to our friends at UCT taking IARU into its next chapter.”
Carolyn Newton, IARU Senior Officer and Director of Global Engagement at UCT, will head the new Secretariat team that will take over IARU administration from May 2023. Cambridge and UCT will work closely over the next few months to provide continuous support to IARU members.
New IARU Chair: Professor Daya Reddy, University of Cape Town
We are delighted to announce that Professor Daya Reddy will be the new IARU Chair. Professor Batmanathan Dayanand ‘Daya’ Reddy, a former holder of the South African Research Chair in Computational Mechanics at UCT, took on the role of interim Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town in March 2023.
Professor Reddy’s research interests are focused around solid and computational mechanics, applied mathematics and engineering sciences. An alumnus of UCT, he completed a PhD at Cambridge, before returning to Cape Town as a postdoctoral researcher. He then remained at UCT, becoming Professor of Applied Mathematics in 1989, and was then appointed South African Research Chair in Computational Mechanics in 2006.
Professor Reddy has served in various leadership positions at UCT, including Director of the Centre for Research in Computational and Applied Mechanics, Head of the Department of Applied Mathematics (1989–1994), Dean of the Faculty of Science (1999–2005) and acting deputy Vice-Chancellor over three separate periods.
From 2018-2021, he was President of the International Science Council (ISC), a body comprising 45 international scientific unions and associations, and national and regional scientific organisations from around 150 countries.
His other accolades include the National Order of Mapungubwe, awarded by the President of South Africa for distinguished contributions to science, and the Georg Forster Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He speaks regularly on aspects of science and public policy, the promotion of science, academic and scientific freedom, and science diplomacy.