Personal statement
Paul McKenna is Deputy Associate Principal (Research & Knowledge Exchange). He leads activity in the areas of Research and Knowledge Exchange, with associated roles aligning with the University’s Postgraduate Research portfolio and Researcher Development. He was Vice Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Science from September 2021 to January 2023 and Head of the Department of Physics from August 2018 to August 2021.
Prof. McKenna’s research focuses on ultra-intense laser-plasma interactions, including the development and application of laser-driven particle and radiation sources, plasma optics and photonics, and high field science.
He is a member of EPSRC's Capital Infrastructure Strategic Advisory Team since 2017 and a former member of STFC's Science Board (2017-20). He holds scientific advisory roles for several international high power laser facilities (e.g. the Program Advisory Committee for the Extreme Light infrastructure-Nuclear Physics facility) and held a visiting position at the Central Laser Facility at Harwell. He was an EPSRC Leadership Fellow from 2012-17 and was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021.
Professional activities
- Program Committee member for the 2023 SPIE International Conference on Applications of Laser-Driven Particle Acceleration
- Participant
- 2023
- Invited Talk at the Cockcroft Institute Scientific Advisory Committee meeting 2022
- Speaker
- 11/10/2022
- Invited Talks (Lectures) at the ELI-Nuclear Physics autumn school 2022
- Speaker
- 10/2022
- External examiner for a PhD candidate at École Polytechnique, Palaiseau, Paris
- Examiner
- 28/9/2022
- SUPA Board of Directors - Member (External organisation)
- Advisor
- 24/6/2022
- Future accelerators for biomedical applications Workshop Program Committee member (External organisation)
- Advisor
- 28/4/2022
More professional activities
Projects
- The Laser-hybrid Accelerator for Radiobiological Applications
- Whyte, Colin (Principal Investigator) Gray, Ross (Co-investigator) McKenna, Paul (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2022 - 30-Jan-2024
- Industrial CASE Account - University of Strathclyde 2022
- McKenna, Paul (Principal Investigator)
- 01-Jan-2022 - 30-Jan-2027
- STFC Lancaster Cockcroft 2022 DTP - Christopher McQueen
- McKenna, Paul (Principal Investigator)
- 01-Jan-2022 - 30-Jan-2026
- DTP 2224 University of Strathclyde
- McKenna, Paul (Principal Investigator)
- 01-Jan-2022 - 30-Jan-2028
- Optimisation and control of laser-driven radiation sources using machine learning
- Gray, Ross (Principal Investigator) McKenna, Paul (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2022 - 31-Jan-2026
- Industrial CASE Account - University of Strathclyde 2022 | Torrance, Ben
- McKenna, Paul (Principal Investigator) Gray, Ross (Co-investigator) Torrance, Ben (Research Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2022 - 01-Jan-2026
More projects