Matt Davison named next Dean of Western’s Faculty of Science

Matt Davison has been appointed to a five-year term as the new Dean of Western University’s Faculty of Science, commencing July 1, 2018. Following an eight-month international search, Davison’s appointment was approved by the Senior Operations & Policy Committee of Western’s Board of Governors based on the strength of a unanimous recommendation from the Science Decanal Selection Committee. Davison will succeed former Dean of Science Charmaine Dean and Acting Dean Pauline Barmby.

“We are thrilled Matt has accepted this new role,” says Western Provost & Vice-President (Academic) Janice Deakin, “and we are confident he will provide strong and creative leadership for the Faculty of Science and Western in the years ahead.”

Davison has been a faculty member at Western since July 1999 and has held several leadership roles in the Faculty of Science since 2014, including Acting Associate Dean and Chair of the Department of Statistical & Actuarial Sciences. Currently, he serves as the founding director of the School of Mathematical & Statistical Science, which combines the three departments of Applied Mathematics, Mathematics and Statistical & Actuarial Sciences.

“There are thousands of years of research behind what we do. Keeping that alive is already a huge contribution we make as scientists,” says Davison, also an award-winning Statistical and Actuarial Sciences professor at Western. “But then we extend it – every day in our labs, in our classrooms, on our chalkboards, in our field schools. That is a massive contribution. The general public often does not connect small ‘s’ science with the big ‘s’ Faculty of Science. They think of us as teachers, first and foremost, and forget we are also making some of the scientific discoveries that drive the world.”

Davison held a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Quantitative Finance between 2006 and 2016 and is a Fields Institute Fellow. Prior to joining Western as a faculty member, Davison was Assistant Vice President, Equity Arbitrage, at Deutsche Bank Canada from 1997-1999 and he was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Physiology Institute of the University of Bern (Switzerland) from 1995-1997.

He holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Engineering) from the University of Toronto and an MSc and PhD in Applied Math from Western. With an expertise in risk management and financial mathematics, his research focuses on using these disciplines to better finance and operate renewable and other energy infrastructures.

Davison has published more than 65 papers, nine book chapters and 13 conference proceedings. He has had continuous NSERC Discovery grant support since the beginning of his academic career and he has graduated 53 Master’s and 18 PhD students from his research group.

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