John G. Hughes was elected the second president

President

A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...

 of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth

National University of Ireland, Maynooth

The National University of Ireland, Maynooth , was founded by the Universities Act, 1997 as a constituent university of the National University of Ireland. It is Ireland's second oldest university, having been formed from St Patrick's College, Maynooth, itself founded in 1795.The university is...

 in 2004 for a ten-year term and is Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the National University of Ireland

National University of Ireland

The National University of Ireland , , is a federal university system of constituent universities, previously called constituent colleges, and recognised colleges set up under the Irish Universities Act, 1908, and significantly amended by the Universities Act, 1997.The constituent universities are...

. He resigned this post in September 2010 to take up the position of Vice-Chancellor at Bangor University

Bangor University

Bangor University is a university based in the city of Bangor in the county of Gwynedd in North Wales-United Kingdom.It was officially known for most of its history as the University College of North Wales...

, Wales.

Life

Professor Hughes was born and raised in Belfast

Belfast

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

, educated at St. Mary's Christian Brothers' Grammar School and at Queens University Belfast where he obtained a BSc with First Class Honours in Mathematics and a PhD in Theoretical Physics

Later academic career

Following appointments at Queens and at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, he became Professor of Information Systems Engineering at the University of Ulster

University of Ulster

The University of Ulster is a multi-campus, co-educational university located in Northern Ireland. It is the largest single university in Ireland, discounting the federal National University of Ireland...

 in 1991. He held a range of senior academic positions at the University of Ulster and was actively involved in promoting research and technology transfer initiatives which attracted substantial funding to the University. He sits on the boards of a range of public and private sector organisations.

He has extensive international links in Europe, the US and Asia. He has initiated a large number of successful research collaborations with prestigious institutions including the Max-Planck Institutes

Max Planck Society

The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes publicly funded by the federal and the 16 state governments of Germany....

, Carnegie-Mellon University, MIT and Tsinghua University

Tsinghua University

Tsinghua University , colloquially known in Chinese as Qinghua, is a university in Beijing, China. The school is one of the nine universities of the C9 League. It was established in 1911 under the name "Tsinghua Xuetang" or "Tsinghua College" and was renamed the "Tsinghua School" one year later...

 in Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

.