Paul Wellings

Paul William Wellings (born 1 November 1953) is an Australian/British ecologist and long serving university leader. He is notable for his past service as vice-chancellor of University of Wollongong (2012–2021), Vice-Chancellor of Lancaster University (2002–2012) and Deputy Chief Executive of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (1999-2002).

Education

Wellings was born in Nottingham on 1 November 1953 and grew up in India and Nigeria. He was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School, King's College London (BSc Joint Hons, Zoology and Botany), Durham University (MSc Advanced Ecology) and the University of East Anglia (UEA) (PhD, 1980). and Deputy lieutenant of Lancashire (2009). In 2018, Wellings was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales. He holds honorary degrees from the Universities of Lancaster (2014), Surrey (2019), Wollongong (2021) and East Anglia (2022), and was awarded the 2020 CASE Asia-Pacific Leadership Award.

Portraits of Wellings hang at Lancaster University (Tai-Shan Schierenberg, 2011) and the University of Wollongong (Sally Robinson, 2021). The University of Wollongong's Molecular Sciences building is named in honour of its former Vice-Chancellor.

Personal life Wellings is married to linguist and designer, Annette Schmidt.

Footnotes