Prof Chris McConville
Professor Chris McConville
SENIOR ASSOCIATE
Most recently I was the Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Senior Pro-Vice Chancellor Research Strategy & Performance at Deakin University (2020-24), having previously been the Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor Research & Innovation in the School of Science, Engineering and Health at RMIT University (2016-20). Prior to relocating to Melbourne in 2016, I was the Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Warwick (2003-16), Head of Condensed Matter Physics (2008-16), and the Executive Director of SCRA - the Science City Research Alliance (2010-16) - a $120M AUD collaboration between the Universities of Warwick and Birmingham with UK industries. With over 100 staff working in science and engineering departments across working both universities, SCRA acted as an accessible conduit to state-of-the-art research facilities and the most up-to-date expertise for a whole range of regional industries and small businesses with engineering, chemical, biological, medical applications and manufacturing. The SCRA project was the largest of eight such regional collaborations established in 2006-08, during a major shift of UK Government policy towards the funding of basic science and engineering in UK Universities by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair.
My own research interests have broadly covered the physics and chemistry of 2D-materials, epitaxial growth, and the surface and interface properties of novel semiconducting and oxide materials – using a range of surface sensitive and atomic resolution imaging techniques to extract physical and electronic structure information. I have delivered over 120 invited lectures at national and international conferences worldwide and published over 320 papers in refereed journals for a personal h-index of 65. I have chaired a number of UK (EPSRC) and European National Grants and Awards Panels, and a number of national and international research facility reviews (2006-16). In 2007 was the recipient of the UK Institute of Physics and British Vacuum Council’s Senior Prize - the John Yarwood Memorial Medal - for innovations in surface, interface and nanoscience.