GNS Science Names New Chief Executive

MEDIA RELEASE from GNS Science                                                                

31 JULY 2013

GNS Science Names New Chief Executive

Professor Michael McWilliams, Chief of CSIRO's Earth Science and Resource Engineering Division, has been named as the new Chief Executive of GNS Science.

Prof McWilliams will take up his role in September 2013. He succeeds Prof Alex Malahoff, who retired in December 2012.

As divisional Chief at Australia’s national science agency for the past five years, Prof McWilliams leads a team of approximately 450 scientists and engineers engaged in research for exploration and production of mineral and energy resources.

He is also Executive Manager of the Queensland Centre for Advanced Technologies, Australia’s largest research and development precinct for the resources sector and associated advanced technology industries.

Prior to that he was Director of the John de Laeter Centre of Isotope Research in Western Australia and Professor of Geophysics and Geological Science at Stanford University’s School of Earth Sciences.

GNS Science Chair Tom Campbell said Prof McWilliams stood out from the large number of international and New Zealand candidates who applied for the leadership role at GNS Science.

“His distinguished career both as a scientist and a science administrator means he will be an asset to GNS Science and to New Zealand.”

Mr Campbell said Prof McWilliam’s areas of expertise were a very good match for the research and consultancy work undertaken by GNS Science.

GNS Science is a Crown-owned company that employs 385 science and support staff and has offices in Lower Hutt, Taupo, and Dunedin. Its purpose is to secure economic, social, environmental benefits for New Zealand by undertaking research and technology transfer that increases resilience to natural hazards, drives innovation and economic growth in the energy and minerals industries, develops industrial and environmental applications of isotope science, and enhances our understanding of natural processes occurring in the Earth’s crust.

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