Falmouth appoints new Director of Research & Graduate Studies

University College Falmouth has appointed Professor Timothy Collins to the new post of Director of Research & Graduate Studies.

Timothy Collins is a Professor of Art, Ecology and Planning; a Board Director of the Landscape Research Group; and a member of the 2010 Arts & Humanities Research Council Peer Review College.

Professor Collins joins UCF from the University of Wolverhampton where he became Associate Dean in September 2005. His work there focused upon Research and Development and he was the founding Director of the Centre for Art, Design, Research and Experimentation (CADRE), which he established with colleagues in 2006.

Professor Collins also directed a cross-school Creativity, Media and Technology Studio supported by the Higher Education Innovation Fund, and led the Art, Society and Environment Research Group.

Prior to this, Professor Collins spent eight years at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, where he was a Distinguished Research Fellow of the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry; completed his PhD at the University of Plymouth; and gained an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and a BFA from the University of Rhode Island.

Professor Collins is an interdisciplinary expert in the area of art, ecology and social practice. He has exhibited and published on art and environment, the artist's role in public planning and on art, aesthetics and environment. He has worked with teams of scientists and designers to conduct quantitative and qualitative research that focuses upon public interests and the restoration of nature to urban spaces.

Professor Collins actively maintains personal research interests in the history and theory of transformative (public) art practices. He is currently developing a research project and publications with long-term collaborator, Reiko Goto, who is conducting PhD research on art and human relationships with trees at Robert Gordon University. Their project, EDEN3, is practice-led research that uses bio-electronic plant physiology measurement and sound to examine the reaction of trees to human initiated changes to atmospheric chemistry in cities. Other collaborators include Professor Trevor Hocking of the School of Applied Science and PhD candidate, Matthew Dalgliesh. Professor Collins also maintains an interest in material practice and planning as it relates to landscape ecology techniques and GIS mapping software. He has previously overseen research that explored the application of landscape ecology metrics to inform decision making about the use of preservation, conservation and restoration ecology for environmental recovery of nature and aesthetics in post-industrial landscapes.

Professor Collins has received funding for his research from Heinz Endowments, The McCune Foundation, The Pittsburgh Foundation,The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. He has also been awarded a Eureka Fellowship and a California Arts Council Fellowship for his work and been an Artist in Residence at the Capp Street Project in San Francisco, The Headlands Art Centre in Marin, California and The Tryon Centre for Visual Art in Charlotte, North Carolina.

"We are delighted to welcome Professor Collins to this new post, whose academic standing is internationally recognised," said University College Falmouth's Deputy Rector, Professor Geoff Smith. "Professor Collins will work closely with our Directors of School to establish research groupings and collaborative activities in support of Cornwall's continuing socio-economic development. This work will form the focus of UCF's planned Academy for Innovation & Research and will be key to realizing our ambitions to establish Arts University Cornwall by 2012/13."

Professor Collins joined University College Falmouth earlier this month and is based at the College's Tremough Campus in Penryn.

For further information about University College Falmouth, visit www.falmouth.ac.uk, email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 213730.

University College Falmouth is the only independent Higher Education institution in Cornwall with the powers to award degrees in its own name. It has two campuses in Cornwall - at Woodlane in Falmouth and Tremough in Penryn (which it owns, and jointly manages with the University of Exeter) - and a third campus at Totnes in Devon, following its merger with Dartington College of Arts in 2008.

This merger created a new institution focusing on the expansion of Falmouth's expertise in Art, Design and Media and Dartington's expertise in Choreography, Music, Theatre, Art and Writing. The Devon-based courses will relocate to a new, high-specification Performance Centre at Tremough in 2010, paving the way for a new specialist Arts University in Cornwall by 2012/2013 that will be unique to the South West.

The College is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education, funded mainly by the European Union (Objective One), the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall Council.

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For further information about University College Falmouth, please contact Jilly Easterby MCIPR, Head of Public Affairs, Telephone: 01326 213792, or email: jilly.easterby@falmouth.ac.uk

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