Dr David Williams

Dr David Williams is a member of the CSIRO Executive Team and is CSIRO’s Executive Director for National Facilities and Collections – a role that sees him lead CSIRO’s work in astronomy and deep space tracking, computing and supercomputing, research ships, the Animal Health research Laboratory , and the major biological collections. He is also a Board member of Australian Academic Research Network.

Prior to his CSIRO role, Dr Williams was the Chief Executive of the United Kingdom Space Agency.  From June 2010 he was also the Chairman of the European Space Agency from June 2012, David was responsible for leading the 20 nation Council executive body that oversaw ESA.

David holds BSc degree and a PhD from the University of Reading. He has previously worked at the University of Reading, in industry, the Natural Environment Research Council, the British National Space Centre and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

David has been a Member of the Global Climate Observing Committee and was elected a Member of the International Academy for Astronautics in 2012.