IT Services

Iain Stinson

Iain Stinson is retiring from his post as Director of IT Services at the University at the end of June.

Iain came to Sussex almost five years ago having previously been IT Services director at Durham, UMIST and Liverpool. He has worked with the academic sector all of his career, first as a systems programmer and then as a lecturer at Imperial College before moving into computer services as Deputy Director at Liverpool.

His background is in computer architecture and operating systems and he spent a six months working at IBM’s Thomas Watson Research Center on their virtual machine hypervisor system and its interactive user sub system.

Iain’s first experience of computing was as a sixth former at school in the North East programming a Ferranti Pegasus computer (a valve based system with 56 words of memory and a magnetic drum with 4000 words of storage): technology has indeed made many advances since those early times.

At Sussex Iain has provided leadership and support for the IT Service team to help them develop and deliver major improvements to the computing service for students and staff; Iain notes that there are still many areas for improvement and that he is confident that the Sussex team will continue to develop and improve the services it provides to the University community.

In retirement Iain plans to spend much more time practicing the organ, doing battle with the garden (ably assisted by his wife Sue), travelling and enjoying time with his family; he also expects to continue to do some work within the sector providing advice and support to universities and colleges.

Iain said “I’ve very much enjoyed working within the HE sector and been very fortunate to have had jobs I’ve found interesting exciting and fulfilling. I’ve worked with some very talented, wonderful and inspiring people both at my home institution and across the sector. I’ve loved working at Sussex: my colleagues in IT services and other colleagues in the University have been very supporting and helpful. The IT Services team have worked hard to deliver the services we wanted to provide to the University; the keep positive and cheerful even when things get a bit difficult. I will miss working with them and hope that we will continue our friendship. I wish them and the University all the best for the future.”