Professor Sinnott, who will take up his appointment in July 2010, will work in the University’s Research portfolio and also hold an adjunct appointment in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering.

He will take over the Directorship from Professor Leon Sterling who held the position from July 2007 to December 2009.

Professor Peter Rathjen, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) says, “eResearch is a critical enabler for strengthening multidisciplinary research and collaboration between researchers nationally and around the globe.”

“We welcome Professor Sinnott’s computational expertise which will help grow the University’s standing in this dynamic area.”

Professor Liz Sonenberg, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Collaboration) says, “In his role Professor Sinnott will work closely with the eScholarship Research Centre, the Research Computing Services unit within Information Technology Services, and take responsibility for the development of the University’s eResearch strategy.”

eResearch activities use a variety of advanced ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) capabilities and new research methodologies emerging from increasing access to faster secure communications networks, research instruments and facilities, massive data storage, sensor networks and high performance computing resources.

The University of Melbourne plays a major role in a number of national and global eResearch projects.

For example, the University’s School of Physics is one of only two Australian university departments to be involved in the Geneva- based Large Hadron Collider and the Atlas Experiment delving into high energy particle physics and the beginnings of the universe.

But eResearch does not only target research in science and technology. For example, University researchers have been active in the high profile eResearch project  - the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC)  project – and outstanding application of ICT tools in the humanities and social sciences domain that harnesses the work of scholars to store and preserve endangered language and music materials from the Asia-Pacific region and creates an online resource to make these available.

The Melbourne School of Graduate Research hosts an eResearch workshop series to familiarise graduate researchers with skills, methodologies, tools and issues to enable them to participate effectively in the eResearch environment

The University is also a partner in the Victorian eResearch Strategic Initiative (VeRSI) which is championing eResearch in Victoria. In addition the University administers an eResearch scholarship program providing support to young researchers.

Prior to coming to Melbourne, Richard was the Technical Director of the UK National e-Science Centre; Director of e-Science at the University of Glasgow and Deputy Director (Technical) for the Bioinformatics Research Centre also at the University of Glasgow.

In these roles Richard was responsible for organising and administrating UK-wide and local Glasgow University activities associated with e-Science and e-Research more generally. He has been integrally involved in the development and successful delivery of a broad portfolio of e-Research projects and associated research-oriented e-Infrastructures.

These have covered (amongst other things), the post-genomic clinical sciences from genetic causes of hypertension to clinical platforms for study of rare diseases; the social sciences and supporting public health research platforms; the arts and humanities and development of tailored platforms for language and literature researchers, through to development of research infrastructures for next-generation nanoCMOS electronics systems.

Prior to going to Glasgow, Richard ran his own consultancy company in the real-time telecommunications domain based in Berlin, Germany, building on the work he undertook whilst he was employed as a senior research scientist at GMD Fokus in Berlin. He holds a PhD from the University of Stirling, Scotland where his research was based on the architectural design of open distributed processing systems (he edited numerous international standards in this area); an MSc in Software Engineering from Stirling, and a BSc Hons in Theoretical Physics from the University of East Anglia in Norwich.

Richard has published extensively across a range of computing science research areas: from theoretical computing science; real-time systems; distributed systems; with more recent focus being based around provisioning of platforms for research scientists with specific focus on those domains requiring finer-grained security.