The University of Canberra has named Professor H Deep Saini the new Vice-Chancellor, and he will take over the position on 1 September.
Professor Saini — currently the Vice-President of the University of Toronto, one of Canada’s top-ranking educational institutions — has stated that he was convinced to move half way around the world because of the unique vision of outgoing Vice-Chancellor Stephen Parker.
He called “the opportunity to lead a young and progressive university impossible to turn down”.
Professor Saini had spent part of a sabbatical living in Canberra in 2000 while he worked at the CSIRO.
Professor Saini completed his undergraduate and masters degrees at the Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana, India, and holds a doctorate in plant physiology from the University of Adelaide. He began his Canadian academic career at the University of Alberta as a post-doctoral fellow, joined the Université de Montréal where he served as director-general of the Plant Biology Research Institute and then moved to the University of Waterloo as dean of the Faculty of Environment.
Professor Saini said he had been approached about the job by an international headhunter in 2014, while he was on vacation with his wife in India.
He described UC as having “an audacious academic path”, and “enterprising, distinctive and bold plans”.
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