Dr Colm T Whelan joined the Department in August 2001. Before that time he lead the Atomic Physics group in the University of Cambridge where he was a Fellow of Magdalene College. He was Chair of the department from 2001 to 2005. His publication list contains 5 books and more than 150 research papers. He has held visiting positions in Brest, Frankfurt am Main, Harvard, Metz, Sendai and Waterloo. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and was, in 2000, elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society for many significant contributions in atomic collision theory and most especially for original work on (e,2e) and related processes. In 2002 he held a Mercator Visiting Professor at the University of Frankfurt am Main in Germany and was awarded a higher doctorate (Sc. D.) by the University of Cambridge. In 2003 he was designated as an Eminent Scholar. In 2003 he was elected to the Chair sequence, of the Few Body Group of the American Physical Society, Vice Chair 2003, Chair Elect 2004, Chair 2005, Past Chair, 2006