Submitted by Administrator on Sun, 06/07/2014 - 08:18
The Department bade a fond farewell to two of its long-term members at the end of June.
Dr Mike Aitken, who was Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer at the Department from 2001, has moved to the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London, to take up the post of Reader. Mike, who was Director of Undergraduate Education in the Department, received a Pilkington Prize (the University's award for excellence in teaching) on his final day of service. Mike was the driving force behind the establishment of the Department's successful new Psychological and Behavioural Sciences course. He will continue to provide some teaching in the Department as an Affiliated Lecturer.
Dr Luke Clark joined the Department in 2007 as Lecturer, later becoming Senior Lecturer. Luke has moved to the University of British Columbia's Department of Psychology as Associate Professor. Luke, who is an expert on problem gambling and addiction, is the first Director of the recently established Centre for Gambling Research at UBC. Luke will be back in Cambridge later this month for the annual meeting of the International Society for Research on Impulsivity.
Head of Department, Professor Trevor Robbins, paid a warm tribute to Luke and Mike, acknowledging the important contributions to the Department made by both, in a speech at the Department's annual garden party, which took place at Emmanuel College on the evening of June 13.
The Department will be welcoming two new members before the start of the next academic year. Dr William Matthews, who is currently Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex, will join the Department as Senior Lecturer. Dr Tristan Bekinschtein, who is a Wellcome Trust Biomedical Research Fellow at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, has been appointed to the post of University Lecturer.