Rate My Professor Fordyce Davidson

Professor Fordyce Davidson serves as Dean of the School of Science and Engineering at the University of Dundee, where he also holds the prestigious Bell Burnell Chair and the position of Professor of Mathematics. He obtained his PhD in Mathematics from Heriot-Watt University in 1993. Following this, he took up a permanent lectureship position at the University of Dundee in 1997, progressing to a professorship in 2015. His administrative career includes serving as Interim Dean of the School of Science and Engineering during the 2015-2016 academic year. On secondment to the University's External Relations office, he led the development and successful launch of International College Dundee. In 2018, he assumed the role of Academic Regional Lead for East Asia, before returning full-time to the School in 2020 as Deputy Dean with responsibility for student recruitment and conversion until May 2023. From 2023 to 2025, he acted as Interim and then substantive Dean of Science and Engineering.

Davidson's research specializes in the quantitative analysis of biological systems, focusing on differential equation models derived from biology, the collective behaviour of microbes—particularly the form and function of bacterial biofilms—and the solution structures of ordinary, partial, and functional differential equations, including reaction-diffusion-convection systems with biological applications. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications since 2007, recipient of the Berkeley Award in 2003, and former Vice President of the British Mycological Society. In addition to his research and leadership roles, he contributes to the academic community as Executive Editor of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Section A: Mathematics, and as a member of the editorial boards for the IMA Journal of Applied Mathematics and Fungal Ecology. His scholarly output includes 98 articles, 3 editorials, 2 book chapters, and 2 conference contributions, with recent notable publications such as 'Induction of patterns through crowding in a cross-diffusion model' (2024, Results in Mathematics), 'Reciprocal sharing of extracellular proteases and extracellular matrix molecules facilitates Bacillus subtilis biofilm formation' (2024, Molecular Microbiology), 'Bacillus subtilis extracellular protease production incurs a context-dependent cost' (2023, Molecular Microbiology), 'A theoretical framework for multi-species range expansion in spatially heterogeneous landscapes' (2022, Oikos), and 'Founder cell configuration drives competitive outcome within colony biofilms' (2022, ISME Journal).