UWS Alumni - tell us your career story
Share your academic and career story with other alumni. Send us your profile details so we can build a complete picture of the diverse activities and achievements of our former students.
Alumni are featured on our alumni blog, social media channels and e-newsletter.
Please email alumni@uws.ac.uk if you would like to be featured. We look forward to hearing from you!
Flight Pioneer
Gordon McConnell is internationally recognised as chief engineer of the iconic and innovative Airbus A350, the ultra-long range aircraft transforming the future of air travel. He has been awarded the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Gold Medal – an honour he shares with those other flight pioneers, Wilbur and Orville Wright. But Gordon’s career had a bumpy start. Gordon failed his first year exams at University of Strathclyde. Rather than resit, he opted to start again at the then Paisley College of Technology (now University of the West of Scotland).
I have a keep-it-simple attitude which has stood me in good stead throughout my career,” Gordon says. “And I’m absolutely sure it came out of the training I got at Paisley, which was down-to-earth and never purely theoretical.Read the full article in WEST
Best Selling Author
Sophie Grant, who writes under the name Sophie Gravia, has always had a love for the English language, and during the pandemic in 2020 she started writing a blog as a distraction from the ongoing pandemic and her long shifts as a renal nurse. Sophie’s debut novel A Glasgow Kiss became a word-of-mouth phenomenon when it was released in December 2020, securing her the no1 best-seller spot on Amazon.
I studied at the Hamilton Campus during my nursing training and had a great experience. I always wanted to be a nurse, and even now, I still love my day job, but writing has opened up so many opportunities that I never dreamed possible! I hope to continue nursing, I think it’s important to give back to into society.Read the full article in WEST
TEDxGlasgow Curator
Business and Management graduate Gurjit Singh Lalli is an entrepreneur with a keen interest in philanthropy and developing social venture capital firms. An avid TED fan, Gurjit acquired the licence for TEDxGlasgow in 2012, bringing together a team of volunteers to form an organisation that is now one of the most established TEDx events in the UK and Europe. Gurjit was named Businessman of the Year at the 2014 Scottish Asian Business Awards.
I loved my time at UWS, the best thing about the course was that it was very practical and hands-on. The lecturers had a background in industry and had been business leaders or entrepreneurs so you felt you weren’t just learning theory.Read the full article in WEST
The Quiet Philanthropist
Lanarkshire-born businessman Les Hutchison is the quiet philanthropist. He has a strong belief in “giving something back” but he does it without fanfare.
He has, however, made an exception for his recent very generous financial donation to University activity, by allowing us to feature him in the hope that it will inspire others in his position to follow his example. Les, who left Bell College of Technology (now part of UWS) with an HNC Electrical Engineering in 1975, went on to become Vice Chair and a Director of the Canadian energy services company, ShawCor Ltd and owner of Motherwell FC before transferring the club into fan ownership in 2016.
My task is not only to help the University directly, but to encourage other alumni like me to come forward.Read the full article in WEST
Last updated: 13/07/2017