Steve Hall is to replace Bob Allwood as CEO of the Society of Underwater Technology (SUT) this April, following Allwood's retirement after seven years in the post.
Hall has been chairman of the SUT's Education and Training Committee for seven years and has been a member of council for two years.
Since starting his career in 1986, in a small private sector engineering survey company, he has over 30 years of experience in the marine science, technology, energy, policy and education sector, and is currently Head of the International and Strategic Partnerships Office at the UK’s National Oceanography Centre.
Hall is Chair of the Marine Science Coordination Committee’s International Working Group and head of the UK delegation and ad-hominem vice-chair at UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.
Bob Allwood graduated from the University of Reading, UK, with a 1st class honors degree in physics and obtained his PhD from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. After working in the field of physics research for some five years at Heriot-Watt University and in industry, he then turned his attention to the problems of working in the underwater environment. Over the coming years he was to work the University’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering on ROV development and then as Manager of Engineering in the University’s Institute of Offshore Engineering. He moved to Cranfield University in 1986 as Senior Lecturer in Underwater Technology and undertook research aimed at the improvement of underwater vision. Whilst there, he also developed and presented Masters programs for the underwater and subsea sectors. As an academic he worked closely with the Society for Underwater Technology, serving on a number of their technical committees and also their Council. He was elected a Fellow of the Society in 1994.
Bob was appointed chief executive of the Society for Underwater Technology in December 2009. He received Subsea UK’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010.