New Head of Applied Computing

Last November, Dr Harin Sellahewa took over as Head of Applied Computing from Professor Sabah Jassim who will remain in a non-managerial role. Professor Jassim is sad to step down but feels he is leaving the Department in good hands, saying, “I would like to start the day by thanking you all for all the support you gave me during my headship of the Department. Your excellent and hard work certainly helped make my task that much more easy and rewarding, and without which the Department may not have survived all the tough challenges. I am very pleased that Harin agreed to take on this challenge and I admire his vision for a future where the Department flourishes and continues to be a leading research department with excellent teaching profile. Thanks again to every academic and administrative member of the Department for their dedication and selfless hard work.”

Dr Sellahewa who holds a BSc in Information Systems and a DPhil in Computing, both from Buckingham, says: “I would like to take this opportunity to thank Sabah for all the hard work he has done to raise the Applied Computing Department to its current position. Sabah led the Department for eight years, achieving numerous successes and overcoming many challenges along the way. Under his visionary leadership, the Department grew in size (staff, students, programmes, facilities and external collaborations) and reputation for its research activities and outputs. In the School of Science and Postgraduate Medicine, Sabah played a leading role in initiating and developing collaborative research in bioinformatics and biomedical image analysis. Now we are about to write the next chapter of our Department’s story. I see many opportunities in the coming years and it is my privilege to lead a group of dedicated staff and enthusiastic students through the next phase of our journey.”