15 October 1997

University of Queensland Dean of Postgraduate Studies Professor David Siddle will take up an appointment as University of Sydney Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) in late November.

As Dean of Postgraduate Studies since 1993, Professor Siddle has been responsible for policy development for research higher degrees, with recent developments including policies on supervision, infrastructure support and guidelines on professional doctorates.

He was also responsible for administering the University's 2200-student PhD program. In 1996 the University had 300 PhD completions, one of the highest rates in the country.

Professor Siddle is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society, former Chair of the National Committee for Psychology (Academy of Science) and a past president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research.

He was a member of the Social Sciences and Humanities Panel of the Australian Research Council (ARC) from 1991 to 1994 and chaired the panel in 1993 and 1994. Professor Siddle was also a deputy chair of the ARC's Research Grants Committee in 1994.

A University of Queensland graduate (1966) with first-class honours in psychology, he has worked at Southampton University in the UK from 1971 to 1983, and during that period was a visiting professor at the University of Ottawa, Canada.

Professor Siddle was at Macquarie University from 1983 to 1988, at the University of Tasmania in 1989/1990 where he was professor of psychology and Head of Department, then joined the University of Queensland in the same role.

Professor Siddle holds several current Australian Research Council grants in the fields of cognitive and emotional factors in human conditioning and the application of conditioning principles to psycho-pathology.

He has written two books, and contributed 15 chapters and 97 journal articles.