May 12, 2014

New Executive Dean of Science, Medicine and Health

Professor Alison Jones has been appointed to the role of Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health (SMAH) at the University of Wollongong, after a rigorous global search and selection process, carried out with the assistance of executive recruitment consultants Odgers Berndtson. 

Professor Jones is an internationally recognised and research-active toxicologist and physician, serving on a wide variety of expert advisory groups and providing advice to State and Commonwealth government departments. 

She has served UOW as Dean of the Graduate School of Medicine at UOW since 2011. Since December 2013 Alison has been Acting Executive Dean of SMAH and she is a Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and serves on the Executive of MDANZ (Medical Deans of Australia and New Zealand).

Professor Jones studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, and spent eight years at London’s Guy’s and St Thomas Hospital, including three years as Head of Medicine. She was also Director of the National Poisons Information Service in London.

Professor Jones came to Australia in 2006 to join the University of Newcastle Medical School as Professor of Medicine and Clinical Toxicology. She continues to serve as a high-level toxicology adviser to NSW Ministry of Health and has worked on several high-profile cases, including the Orica hexavalent chromium VI leak at Kooragang Island (Newcastle) in 2011. She also advises the courts and currently sits on the Botany Bay Expert Steering Group, evaluating risks to the community from mercury and other toxins. 

She joined the UOW in 2011 as Dean of the new Graduate School of Medicine, attracted by the opportunity to make a difference to the way doctors are trained. 

Professor Jones maintains strong, collaborative research partnerships with health and medical researchers in areas as diverse as psychology and paediatrics and contributes to major health studies with researchers at the University of Sydney, University of New South Wales, Neuroscience Research Australia and University of Western Sydney, among others. Professor Jones is also the Deputy Executive Director of the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute, based at UOW.