Professor Igor Guz joined Heriot-Watt as the Executive Dean of Engineering & Physical Sciences from the University of Aberdeen where he started in 2002 as a Lecturer, becoming personal Chair in Engineering in 2007 and the Sixth Century Chair in Solid Mechanics in 2010. He served as Head of the School of Engineering in Aberdeen from 2013-2021, leading during a period of significant growth of its research and teaching activities and improvement in national and international rankings. Prior to joining Aberdeen, Igor worked at various positions in Vienna, Stuttgart, Paderborn, Cambridge, and Imperial College London.

Igor's main research interests are in solid mechanics. His lifelong research in advanced anisotropic materials (particularly those with strong internal heterogeneities occurring at multiple scales), fracture mechanics, nanomaterials, vibrations control, coupled thermos-electro-mechanical problems has resulted in over 350 publications including 4 books and 150 journal papers.

Igor received the Doctor of Sciences (DSc) degree from the Timoshenko Institute of Mechanics. He won several prestigious research fellowships (Humboldt Fellowship in Germany, Lisa Meitner Fellowship in Austria and several Fellowships at Cambridge University from the Royal Society) and was awarded The State Prize of Ukraine in Science & Technology. He became an Elected Fellow of SNAME in 2016 and was appointed as an Extraordinary Professor of the Pusan National University in Busan, South Korea in 2018.

Igor was organiser and Co-chairman of the Euromech Colloquium 400 in London and delivered over 60 invited talks at the leading universities in the UK, USA, Japan, Australia, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Chile, China and South Korea. In 2004, he has founded the interdisciplinary Centre for Micro- and Nanomechanics (CEMINACS) in Aberdeen, an internationally recognised centre of excellence in mechanics of heterogeneous media.

He is Editor-in-Chief of Composites and Advanced Materials (formerly Advanced Composites Letters) since 2019 and member of the Editorial Boards of several journals including International Applied Mechanics, and Mechanics of Composite Materials.

Igor is sitting on the SRPe (Scottish Research Partnership in Engineering)  Board of Directors since 2023. Outside academia, he is working closely with industry bodies and the local authorities focussing on maximising the benefits to the region from innovation, internationalisation, training and learning.