Sir Alan Wilson CGeog

Biography

Occupation: Prof Urban & Regional Systems Employer: UCL, CASA Memo: Sir Alan Wilson FBA FRS graduated in Mathematics from Cambridge but converted to the social sciences through research on cities. He is best known for his pioneering work on spatial interaction methods and dynamical systems theory in transportation and urban modelling. His academic career was as Professor of Urban and Regional Geography at the University of Leeds in 1970 and was also the university's Vice-Chancellor from 1991 to 2004. From 2004-2006, Alan was the Director-General for Higher Education in the Department for Education and Skills. He is now Professor of Urban and Regional Systems in the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London. He was elected as FBA in 1994, AcSS in 2000 and FRS in 2006. He was knighted for services to higher education in 2001. He has honorary doctorates from the Pennsylvania State University (2002), Bradford, Leeds and Leeds Metropolitan Universities (2004) and Teesside University (2006) and honorary Fellowships from University College London (2003) and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (2004).