David Wallace (physicist)

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David Wallace (physicist) bigraphy, stories - Scottish physicist and mathematician

David Wallace (physicist) : biography

1945 –

Sir David James Wallace, CBE, FRS, FREng, DL (born 1945) is a physicist and master of Churchill College, Cambridge.

Personal

He has a wife, Elizabeth and a daughter, Sara. He enjoys mycophagy.

Research

After postdoctoral research work as a Harkness Fellow at Princeton University, Wallace became a physics lecturer at the University of Southampton in 1972.

In 1979, he became Tait Professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Edinburgh. He became Director of the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC) and in 1996 he was awarded the CBE for his computing work.

He was formerly Vice President and Treasurer of the Royal Society and Chair of the Council for the Mathematical Sciences. From 1994 to January 2006 he was the Vice-Chancellor of Loughborough University. From 2006 to 2011 he was the Director of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge. Wallace has also been President of the Institute of Physics and Deputy Lieutenant of Leicestershire.

Education

Wallace was educated at Hawick High School in Hawick, Borders, Scotland and went to the University of Edinburgh where he earned a degree in Mathematical Physics and a PhD in Elementary Particle Theory, under the supervision of Peter Higgs.