Change at the top for Scotland's Institute of Aquaculture

The top job at Stirling University’s Institute of Aquaculture (IoA) has become available for the fifth time in just over a decade.

The university said IoA head Professor Simon MacKenzie had recently stepped down from the job, and will be leaving the university. Long-serving aquaculture academic Professor Trevor Telfer is in temporary charge of the institute.

News of MacKenzie’s departure comes as the IoA prepares to commission the £21 million National Aquaculture Technology and Innovation Hub (NATIH), a state-of-the-art freshwater facility with a number of different recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) and flow-through pathogen challenge facilities.

A big job

MacKenzie’s exit leaves university chiefs with an important vacancy to fill for the fifth time since 2015, when IoA head Professor Brian Austin retired.

He was replaced as IoA director by Professor Malcolm MacLeod, the university’s deputy principal for operational strategy and external affairs, around a year later.

MacLeod was succeeded by deputy director and fish scientist Herve Migaud in March 2017. Migaud’s tenure lasted until April the following year, when he stepped back to fully focus on academic work. In 2022, he joined salmon farmer Mowi Scotland as health, welfare, and biology director.

NATIH

Professor Selina Stead, whose roles included the UK government’s chief scientific advisor for the Marine Management Organisation, was announced as the new IoA chief in January 2019 and took up her role on March 1.

Stead was in the job for nearly three years, before joining Leeds University as executive dean of environment at the beginning of 2022. The funding for NATIH, primarily through a UK and Scottish Government-funded City Deal, was secured her time at the helm.

MacKenzie, a long-serving University of Stirling professor, was named as Stead’s successor shortly after she announced her departure in November 2021. He took up the role on January 1, 2022, and has been heavily involved in taking NATIH from concept to high-tech reality.