Appointments

Professor Jason Swedlow
Chair of Quantitative Cell Biology
College of Life Sciences
Professor Swedlow earned a BA in Chemistry from Brandeis University in the USA in 1982 and a PhD in Biophysics with Profs D. A. Agard and J. W. Sedat in 1994.

He worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr T. J. Mitchison at the University of California, San Francisco and then Harvard Medical School from 1994 and 1998, supported by a Damon Runyon Walter Winchell Cancer Research Fund Fellowship from 1995 to 1997.

In 1998, Prof Swedlow established his own laboratory at the Wellcome Trust Biocentre, University of Dundee, as a Principal Investigator and Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow and in 2002 was awarded a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship.

His lab specializes in using high resolution fluorescence microscopy to probe the mechanics of cell division in living cells and in developing software tools that enable management, visualization and analysis of digital image data.

He participates as Faculty in the Analytical and Quantitative Microscopy Course at the Marine Biological Laboratory and is co- founder of the Open Microscopy Environment (http://openmicroscopy.org).

Professor Claire Halpin
Chair of Plant Biology and Biotechnology
College of Life Sciences
Professor Claire Halpin graduated with a first class honours degree in Botany from University College Dublin.

After completing a teaching degree and an MSc and working as a secondary school teacher she opted for a career in research and completed her PhD part-time while working as a research assistant at Warwick University.

Professor Halpin was awared a PhD by the University of Leicester in 1990 for a thesis on protein transport in plan cells.

She then worked in industry for six years becoming a Senior Research Scientist running a team of researchers for Zeneca Plant Sciences (now Syngenta).

She began her academic career in Dundee in 1996 as a lecturer in plant science in the then Department of Biological Sciences.

Professor Halpin is now part of the College of Life Sciences' Division of Plant Sciences based at the Scottish Crop Research Institute.

Current research focuses on the production of lignin by plants and on improving plant biomass for biofuel production. She is also working on developing new techniques to broaden the possibilities for studying and manipulating plant metabolism.

Professor David Collison
Chair of Accounting and Society
College of Arts and Social Sciences
Professor Collison holds a Personal Chair of Accounting & Society, having previously been Senior Lecturer and Lecturer in the University of Dundee which he joined in 1989.

He graduated in mathematics with economics from the University of Sussex and trained in accounting with the National Health Service and in professional practice.

His areas of research include social and environmental accounting and he contributes to the work of a number of professional accounting bodies in this area in the UK and Europe.

His research also focuses on the impact of conventional accounting and finance practices on social well being - with particular reference to differences between "Anglo-American" and "Social Market" versions of capitalism.