Colleagues past and present came together on Friday, 12 April 2013 to mark the retirement of Professor Kevin B. Nolan and to recognise his outstanding contribution as Head of the Department of Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry and the Foundation Head of the School of Postgraduate Studies at RCSI.

The day's celebrations began with a Festschrift where academic colleagues from RCSI in Dublin and Bahrain along with colleagues from universities in Ireland, the UK, Belgium, Hungary and the USA honoured Professor Nolan's enormous contribution to academia. Later in the afternoon, staff from across all areas of the College attended a celebration in the College's Boardroom, hosted by Professor Hannah McGee, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, RCSI.

Professor Cathal Kelly, Chief Executive/Registrar of RCSI, commented: “It is a pleasure and a challenge to try to summarise briefly Professor Kevin Nolan’s contributions to RCSI over the past 26 years. He is the ideal academic leader, a true teacher and student advocate, committed to the advancement of junior academic staff, an innovator in both education and his field of medicinal chemistry and finally a selfless team-player for our College. I hope very much that this is not goodbye, but marks a transition to another phase in his life at RCSI.”

Professor Nolan joined RCSI in 1987 as Head of the Department of Chemistry & Physics, which following re-structuring, became the Department of Pharmaceutical & Medicinal Chemistry. From 1997-2002, he held the position of Vice-Dean of the RCSI Medical Faculty with responsibility for research and was Chairman of the RCSI Research Committee. With the establishment of School of Postgraduate Studies, he was appointed Foundation Head of this School where his outstanding achievements included establishment of a structured PhD programme. He was President of the Biological Society 1998-1999 and was Chairman of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Ireland Section, 2003-06.

Professor Nolan has received a number of teaching awards during his career include in the RCSI Students' Union Award for best Pre-clinical Teacher (1999) RCSI President's Teaching Award (2012) and the NAIRTL National Award for Excellence in Teaching 2012.

He is the author of more than 100 publications and in 2004, he was awarded a DSc from the National University of Ireland for research in Bio-inorganic Chemistry. In 2008, he co-founded and is current Chairman of the Irish Institute for Metal- based Drugs and was centrally involved in the establishment of the UCD/RCSI/TCD Centre for Synthesis and Chemical Biology in 2001.

Professor Nolan began his career with research and lecturing positions at the University of Stirling, University College London and the University of Surrey during the 1970s and 1980s including a year as Visiting Professor in Chemistry at the University of California San Diego. As well as a DSc, he holds a BSc degree in Chemistry and a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from University College Galway.