Appointments

• Bradford University vice-chancellor Chris Taylor has been elected president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

• Sally Neocosmos, chief executive officer of the Higher Education Staff Development Agency in Sheffield, has been named registrar at the University of York.

• Ian Tonks, professor of finance at the University of Bristol, has been appointed the first director of the University of Exeter's Centre for Finance and Investment from September.

• Lori Manders has been named director of external affairs of Aberdeen University, with responsibility for fundraising and alumni and media relations.

• The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has appointed Andy Neely, professor and director of Cranfield School of Management's Centre for Business Performance, associate director of the Advanced Institute for Management.

• Leslie Hannah, chief executive of Ashridge, will become professor of economics at the University of Tokyo from early next year.

• Julian Gravatt, finance director at the City Literary Institute and former director of policy at Lewisham College, London, will succeed John Brennan as the Association of College's further education development director.

• The Royal Society of Chemistry has awarded: John Irvine the 2002 prize for fuel-cell science and technology (Francis Bacon Medal); Russell Morris the Corday-Morgan medal and the Barrer award for experimental chemistry; and Neville Richardson the surface and colloid chemistry award. All three are based at St Andrews University.