Duncan Lorimer has been named the associate dean for research in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University.
The associate dean for research is responsible for leading faculty in research, research program development and intellectual property activities. As part of the Eberly College’s senior leadership, Lorimer will facilitate independent research and interdisciplinary research projects between the Eberly College, other WVU colleges and schools and outside collaborators. He will also monitor research metrics, develop college research policies and practices and lead the Eberly College’s Office of Research.
“The Eberly College is proud to welcome Professor Duncan Lorimer to our leadership team,” said Gregory Dunaway, dean of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. “Professor Lorimer is a distinguished scientist and scholar who has gained a reputation as a highly effective academic leader. I have no doubt that the Eberly College’s research initiatives and overall productivity will continue to advance under Professor Lorimer’s able leadership.”
Lorimer will begin his new role the week of Jan. 21. In his first year in the position, he aims to increase the number of sponsored projects across the Eberly College by working closely with faculty and staff.
“The Eberly College has a diverse pool of amazing faculty and students carrying out research and scholarship in a wide range of disciplines,” Lorimer said. “It is a great honor to be able to serve WVU in this role as we strive to enhance our research productivity through interdisciplinary collaborations.”
Lorimer, who began his career at WVU in May 2006, is a professor of astrophysics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. He studies radio pulsars, or rapidly spinning, highly magnetized neutron stars and led a team that discovered fast radio bursts, a new class of astrophysical phenomena, in 2007. To conduct his research, Lorimer uses some of the most well-known radio telescopes around the world, including the 100-meter Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope, in Green Bank.
In July 2018, Lorimer was part of an international team of astronomers that proved that one of the fundamental pillars of Einstein’s theory of gravity held true for objects with extreme gravity – neutron stars and white dwarfs.
Lorimer came to WVU from the University of Manchester in the UK, where he worked as a Royal Society research fellow. He previously worked at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany. He holds a Ph.D. in radio astronomy from the University of Manchester.
