Today, Professor Ewan St. John Smith begins his new role as the Head of Department!
He succeeds Professor Laura Itzhaki, who departs from the position after six years in the post.
Professor Smith wrote the following to mark this change:
Today marks an exciting, but daunting day as I begin as Head of Department - Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge!
After 5-years as Deputy Head & two Terms as Acting-Head, I have been fortunate to spend the last year on sabbatical (i.e. research leave). My aim for the year was to write grants & attend conferences, especially at times of the year that teaching usually prevents.
It was a whirlwind year, presenting our group’s research on naked mole-rats, pain mechanisms, & lab animal welfare.
From the Pain in Animals Workshop at the NIH, it was off to lab animal welfare meetings in 🇨🇳, before Society for Neuroscience & UCI Center for Neural Circuit Mapping meetings in 🇺🇸;I somehow managed to bring stereotypical British rain with me to California, twice.
Next up was the Pain Mechanisms & Therapeutics conference in 🇮🇹, always an intense but exciting meeting, a trip to Hohhot for a further lab animal welfare meeting, & then the MSK Biology & Bioengineering Gordon Research Conferences in 🇺🇸; one of the friendliest conferences I’ve been to with lots of exciting research, but I still have nightmares about the Achilles tendon rupture videos!
I closed the year’s travelling out by attending APSN-FAONS-HKSN Neuroscience in 🇭🇰, presenting our group’s work on how non-neuronal cells can induce & reduce pain, then visiting University of Macau to present more broadly on joint pain.
Sabbatical-enabled freedom to travel resulted in catching up with old friends, making new ones, & developing new collaborations 😃
Fundamentally, the only reason one gets invited to speak at meetings is because of the hard work of people in the lab who have been driving our research in different directions over the years: it’s been a privilege to work with you all, both past & present. This past year, it was great to be able to attend conferences with Luke Pattison, Maya Dannawi, & Yaochen Xie & see you present your work!
Thanks also to lots of amazing collaborators who have enabled us to do new things!
As well as the benefits of discussing research at conferences, it’s been great seeing so many new places, going running in all sorts of conditions, & eating lots of great food!
As for those grant applications, it's not been the most spectacular of years so far, but my fingers are crossed for a few grants under review 🤞
So, what next? It seems somewhat surreal that I’m now Head of the Department that I started my PhD in ~23-years ago to the day! I have massive shoes to fill, the Department having been such a wonderful place to work under the leadership of Laura Itzhaki.
My goal is to ensure that the Department remains a place where exciting discoveries are made whilst also being a supportive & inclusive environment to study & work.
Alongside the Department job, I’ll continue to give it my all for Corpus Christi College Cambridge, both with teaching &, of course, caring for the Chronophage!
Let’s see what the next 5-years brings!