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Abertay has appointed four new Professors this academic year - (left to right) Nicholas Grier, Karen Renaud, Ruth Falconer and David Lavallee.
Professor of Cybersecurity Karen Renaud is a Scottish computing scientist working on all aspects of Human-Centred Security and Privacy. Educated at the Universities of Pretoria, South Africa and Glasgow, she is particularly interested in deploying behavioural science techniques to improve security behaviours, and in encouraging end-user privacy-preserving behaviours.
Her research approach is multi-disciplinary, essentially learning from other, more established, fields and harnessing methods and techniques from other disciplines to understand and influence cyber security behaviours.
Prof Renaud was one of five UK Cyber Security Fulbright Awardees for 2016/17 and has recently returned from a seven-month placement at Mississippi State University.
Prof of Commercial Law Nicholas Grier is the new Head of Abertay’s Division of Law.
Born in Edinburgh and brought up there and in Argyll, he was educated at Oxford and Edinburgh Universities before qualifying as a solicitor and working in several law firms and a Scottish merchant bank.
Having taught law at Edinburgh University, he moved to Napier University, where he became Head of the Department of Law.
Prof Grier’s research interests are primarily in company law and in the law relating to debt in Scotland.
He particularly wishes to pay tribute to predecessor Ken Swinton’s outstanding contribution to the study of Law at Abertay.
Professor of Complex Systems Modelling Ruth Falconer is Head of the Division of Computing and Mathematics.
She holds a BSc in Physics and PhD in Ecological Modelling and her ongoing research interests are the development of modelling and visualisation frameworks to understand complex systems.
Prof Falconer’s innovations include developing the first theoretical model and visualisation framework for indeterminate organisms.
These modelling and visualisation skills have been applied across disciplines to develop interactive visual simulations of urban sustainability, heat loss and gain from built environment and precision agriculture.
She is interested in applying games technology including games engines, graphics hardware and related infrastructure, to develop playable models of complex systems.
Current areas of application are the Water-Energy-Food-nexus and Microbial Ecology.
She is also investigating the utility of complexity science e.g. complex adaptive system models in game design and development.
The world’s first Professor of Duty of Care in Sport David Lavallee started in August in the Division of Sport and Exercise Sciences.
A graduate of Harvard University, Prof Lavallee is Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Limerick. He also recently returned from a Fellowship at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
Prof Lavallee is originally from Boston, Massachusetts, and studied philosophy and then psychology.
He took up the unique position with a view to leading international research and education on a vast range of issues in the sporting arena from bullying and harassment to equality and inclusion.
The world’s first Prof of Duty of Care in Sport David Lavallee is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Limerick and recent recipient of a prestigious Erskine Fellowship at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
A graduate of Harvard University, Prof Lavallee is also a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and played international football for the USA.
He takes up the unique position with a view to leading international research and education on a vast range of issues from bullying and harassment to equality and inclusion.