About · Leadership
Institute leadership
The Institute is governed by a Director who reports to the Board of Trustees, supported by a COO responsible for services and operations and a Dean leading the Graduate School.
Director
Prof. Margarethe Valdez
Prof. Valdez has served as Director of the Veyra Institute since 2016. She trained originally as a computational physicist, earning her doctorate from the Aldenmoor Institute of Technology in 1998 and completing postdoctoral work at the Harren Centre for Theoretical Science. Before joining Veyra, she held a faculty position at the Carantis School of Engineering, where she built the Adaptive Systems Laboratory into a team of 35 researchers over nine years.
As Director, Prof. Valdez is responsible for the Institute's overall scientific and strategic direction, its relationships with the Board of Trustees, and its engagement with major external funders and partners. She has led two successful multi-year fundraising campaigns, including the 2021–2024 Horizon Programme that funded the Meridian cluster expansion and the formation of three new cross-division research initiatives.
Her own research — conducted in collaboration with the Computational & Data Systems division — centres on the foundations of distributed machine learning and on developing formal frameworks for assessing the reliability of large-scale inference systems. She holds four patents (VEYRA-PAT-0031 through VEYRA-PAT-0034) and has co-authored more than 80 publications. She sits on the scientific advisory boards of two external research foundations and represents Veyra on the Arenfield Regional Science Council.
- Office
- Calder Mesa, Building A, Room 101
- m.valdez@veyra.example
- Full profile
- people/margarethe-valdez →
Chief Operating Officer & Head of Services
Dr. Anselm Faraday-Cole
Dr. Faraday-Cole joined Veyra in 2011 as Head of Scientific Services and was appointed Chief Operating Officer in 2018. He studied chemical engineering at the Orenthal University of Applied Sciences before moving into science management, completing an executive programme in research operations at the Kellmer Business School. Before Veyra, he held senior roles at two contract research organizations, developing expertise in facility design, instrument utilization, and the commercial structuring of sponsored research agreements.
As COO, Dr. Faraday-Cole oversees all operational functions of the Institute: the five commercial service lines, the five core research facilities, human resources, estates, finance, and information technology. He leads a professional and technical staff of more than 300 and is responsible for the operating budget. He also chairs the Institute's Health, Safety & Environment Committee and sits on the Research Ethics Committee as an observer.
Under his leadership, external service income has grown from 18% to 34% of total Institute revenue, enabling sustained cross-subsidy of fundamental research without increasing dependence on competitive grant cycles. He has overseen the commissioning of the Cleanroom & Nanofabrication Facility (2014), the Veyra Biofoundry (2020), and the most recent Meridian cluster expansion (2024).
- Office
- Calder Mesa, Building A, Room 104
- a.faraday-cole@veyra.example
- Full profile
- people/anselm-faraday-cole →
Dean of the Graduate School
Prof. Idris Komnenos
Prof. Komnenos is the second Dean of the Veyra Graduate School, appointed in 2017 following eight years as a principal investigator in the Cognitive & Neural Science division. He completed his doctorate in computational neuroscience at the Pellerin Institute and held postdoctoral positions at the Delvar Centre for Neural Systems and at the Morrow Foundation's Brain Dynamics Laboratory before joining Veyra in 2009 as one of the founding members of the CNS division.
As Dean, Prof. Komnenos is responsible for admissions policy, curriculum standards, student welfare, and the overall quality of the PhD and MSc by Research programmes. He oversees the Veyra Fellows postdoctoral programme, co-directs the annual Summer School, and represents the Graduate School on the Institute's Academic Council. He has grown PhD enrolment from 148 to 210 students since taking office, and introduced the cross-division thesis co-supervision requirement in 2019.
His research interests remain active: he co-supervises three PhD candidates working on neural circuit models of prediction error and maintains a collaboration with Prof. Hana Okoro's Computational Neuroscience Group. He has published 52 peer-reviewed articles and is the author of the widely used graduate-level textbook Dynamical Systems in Neural Computation (3rd edition, Veyra Press, 2023).
- Office
- Calder Mesa, Building D, Room 210
- i.komnenos@veyra.example
- Full profile
- people/idris-komnenos →
Organisational structure
The Institute operates through a two-track structure: a research track and an operations track, both reporting to the Director.
The research track comprises five divisions (CDS, MME, QPS, CNS, ECS), each with three research groups and direct access to the five core facilities. Division leads — who are typically senior group leaders — meet monthly as the Academic Council, chaired by the Director. The Academic Council sets research priorities, approves new group proposals, and oversees cross-division seed funding.
The operations track is led by the COO and encompasses commercial services (five service lines under individual service directors), core facilities management, estates and infrastructure, finance, HR, and IT. The COO also holds direct line responsibility for the Veyra Fellows postdoctoral coordination office.
The Graduate School sits at the intersection of both tracks. The Dean reports to the Director, maintains academic standards independently, and works with both division leads (for supervision) and the COO's office (for student welfare and facilities access). The Graduate School Committee — comprising the Dean, one elected student representative per division, and two co-opted external members — meets quarterly.
The Board of Trustees holds ultimate governance authority and meets four times per year. It is responsible for appointing the Director, approving the annual budget, and reviewing the Institute's compliance with its founding charter. See the Governance page for Board composition and terms of reference.