Dr Greg Moran has been appointed as the new provost of the Aga Khan University (AKU) and the chief academic officer will play a key part in overseeing the quality of the entire university’s academic programmes. According to a statement issued by the AKU Public Affairs, Dr Moran brings over two decades of experience as faculty, researcher and theses supervisor.A member of the faculty of the University of Western Ontario (UWO) in London, Ontario, Canada since 1977, he has been a full-time professor since 1992 besides holding a number of administrative positions. These have included chair of the department of psychology, dean of graduate studies, provost, vice president (academic), and twice, he was acting president.
He obtained his undergraduate degree in psychology from the McGill University, Montreal, and his graduate degrees at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. Both his master’s and his doctoral theses were on animal behaviour – on wolves and meerkats – but his interest has since shifted to human behaviour. For more than 20 years, Dr Moran has worked to improve our understanding of the nature, origins and consequences of the relationship between mothers and their babies.
His research includes studies on the impact of a variety of family situations on mothers and their children, and also on the special challenges faced by adolescent mothers. He has been a member of both the clinical and developmental groups within the psychology department at UWO as well as a registered practicing psychologist in Ontario, Canada for more than a quarter of a century.
Throughout his career, Dr Moran has had been deeply committed to working with UWO graduate students. He has supervised 17 master’s theses and is currently supervising another four; and has supervised 14 PhD theses with five others currently under way. He has also supervised four post-doctoral fellows.
In addition, he has served on the thesis committees of more than 50 budding academics. An active researcher himself, Dr Moran has a strong record of publications and grant support. Currently, he is principal or co-principal investigator on projects supported by both the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institute of Health Research, and in the past has received funding from the National Science and Research Council of Canada and several other major granting councils.
Since 2010, his research interests have expanded to include higher education policy and practice leading to his participation in several Canadian International Development Agency project grants to address the effectiveness of university-community partnerships in collaborations between the University of Western Ontario and the National University of Rwanda and the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Nairobi, Kenya.
He is sought after as a presenter and adviser on university policy matters including revenue generation, planning, organisation design, quality assurance, culture, and transformation. In 2011, he co-authored with I Clark, M Skolnick and D Trick, a book on “Academic Transformation: The Forces Reshaping Higher Education” in Ontario. He also has been a member of the Campus Alberta Quality Council for the past four years. The Council evaluates proposals for new degree programmes from all the universities and colleges in the province of Alberta, Canada, besides monitoring the quality of existing programmes.
For the year ahead, Dr Moran has major responsibilities as principal investigator on a number of grants, and continuing responsibilities as a thesis supervisor – and he is committed to honouring these. This means that that Dr Moran will continue his research with his students at UWO and begin his work with AKU on a part-time basis on September 1, 2011. He will increase his time with AKU in January 2012, and then take up the position full-time starting July 1, 2012.
