Professor Graham Kerr is the Technical Director of CENSIS, the Innovation Centre for Sensing, Imaging and Internet of Things technologies, which he took up in March 2016. He leads the CENSIS engineering team, working across multiple sectors, with partners in industry, academia and other public sector organisations, to deliver economic, societal and environmental impacts across Scotland and beyond.
A physicist and engineer, Graham’s career has had a foothold in both industry and academia. While leader of FMC Technologies Optoelectronics R&D Group, he helped develop new sensing technologies for the subsea sector and ran several collaborative R&D programmes with university partners. As R&D Manager for Texol Technical Solutions, he led the development of several new technology products including a range of gas generators for analytical laboratories. He was a founding member of Motorola Manufacturing Systems (Europe) and introduced new robotic and automation processes to global manufacturing facilities producing cellular, semiconductor and automotive products. At Babcock Energy’s Technology Centre, he worked on major infrastructure engineering projects for the energy sector.
A former member of the University of Glasgow’s Institute for Gravitational Research, Graham’s academic work was primarily focused on the development of ultra-stable lasers for long-baseline laser interferometers. He holds a BSc and PhD in Physics from the University of Glasgow.
Graham currently sits on the industrial advisory board for the James Watt School of Engineering at the University of Glasgow and is a member of the UK Sensing Innovations Leadership Council (SILC). In April 2024, Graham was appointed as Professor in Practice at the University of Glasgow’s James Watt School of Engineering.
Professor Kerr joined the SSAC on 1 December 2022.
