The new president of University College Cork is one of the State's leading scientists, Prof Gerard Wrixon, director of UCC's National Microelectronics Research Centre. Prof Wrixon will succeed Dr Michael Mortell in February.
Dr Wrixon (58) was born in Limerick but was educated largely in Cork. A UCC engineering graduate, he went on to do postgraduate studies at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his Ph.D.
After working at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, teaching at Loyola University in Los Angeles and working at the Fokker aircraft factory in Amsterdam, he joined UCC's staff in 1974.
He set up the highly successful National Microelectronics Research Centre in 1981. In 1982 he was appointed professor of microelectronics.
Prof Wrixon is the founder and chairman of the Ballincollig-based firm Farran Technology. He is a board member of DII Group Inc, of Boulder, Colorado, General Semiconductor Inc of New York, and Telecom Eireann. He was chairman of Eolas, the Irish Science and Technology Agency, from 1987 to 1993. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He is also interested in the arts, and serves as chairman of the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork and on the boards of the Cork Opera House and Opera South.
Prof Wrixon is married with three grown-up children.