Senior management

Professor Nicholas Terry
Principal and Vice-Chancellor (Acting)

He contributes regularly to continuing professional development seminars for the Institute of Chartered Accountants for Scotland, the Institute for Chartered Financial Analysts, and for the Institute of Directors. His publications include books and articles on tax policy, venture capital and pensions systems. He is co-author of the Oxford Handbook of International Financial Terms, holds the Chair in Management at the University, and is on the board of Design Dundee Limited, the partnership driving the V&A at Dundee project.

Professor Steve Olivier
Vice-Principal and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Acting)

Steve arrived at Abertay in November 2005 as Head of the School of Social and Health Sciences, having spent five years as Head of Sport Sciences at Northumbria University. He was educated at Rhodes University in South Africa, and has worked at Rhodes, the University of Cape Town, the University of Zululand, and in the UK at Staffordshire University, Edge Hill, and Northumbria University.

Steve has extensive experience of quality assurance, research and consultancy management, course development, and teaching and learning innovation. At various times he has also overseen recruitment, internationalisation, human resources, and information services at Abertay.

Steve is an active researcher, specialising in research ethics. He has published widely, in a number of areas including the philosophy of sport, sports psychology, physiology, and morphology. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the British Philosophy of Sport Association, and is a British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences accredited researcher. He previously served on the Association’s Accreditation and Fellowship Committee, and as the Research Representative on the Education and Professional Development Committee.

A lifelong surfer, he is probably one of the few Professors in the UK who brave our chilly waters on a regular basis. An experienced triathlete, he has been heavily involved as a participant in endurance events and in extreme sports. He played first class rugby in his native South Africa, and is an experienced and successful rugby coach at high levels, both in England and South Africa.

Professor David Heeley
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic Development)

As PVC (Academic Development), David is responsible for quality assurance, quality enhancement and the academic standards of all degree programmes at the University of Abertay Dundee.  In addition, he supervises the Registry and the Partnerships Office.  His responsibilities also include developing and maintaining collaborations with academic partners both within the UK and internationally. His previous role was as Director of Academic Standards and Quality Assurance. He serves on the Universities Scotland Learning and Teaching Committee.

David joined Abertay in 2001 as Professor of Experimental Psychology & Vision Science from the University of St Andrews where he had spent the preceding 22 years in research and teaching, including a period as Head of the School of Psychology. He gained his Honours degree from the University of Sussex, and his doctorate from the University of Cambridge. He is a member of the Experimental Psychology Society and a lifelong member of the Applied Vision Association and holds an Honorary Professorship in Psychology from the University of St Andrews. He worked at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey as a post-doctoral researcher into human perception and colour vision before returning to take up the post at St Andrews. He has published his research widely in international journals, specialising in the study of aspects of human visual perception and neuropsychology, and has served as a reviewer for numerous scholarly journals, academic book publishers, and UK and international Research Councils.

David has extensive experience of quality assurance. He was seconded to the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council as a Lead Assessor to lead the Teaching Quality Assessment of Psychology in Scotland. He has been an auditor and reviewer for the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, being involved in more than a dozen institutional audits and reviews, has served as a reviewer for the Degree Awarding Powers and University Title reviews group at the QAA, and was an auditor on the reviews of higher education links between the UK and Sri Lanka, and links between the UK and the People’s Republic of China. He has recently served in an advisory capacity on the revision of sections of the QAA Code of Practice in Higher Education.