Dr Mike Shackleton named new Chief Research Officer at ARRB

In March this year, the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB) appointed Dr Michael 'Mike' Shackleton to the position of Chief Research Officer (CRO).

"We are looking forward to Mike's continued valuable contributions to the leadership team and steering ARRB on its journey towards shaping our transport future." Michael Caltabiano, ARRB’s Chief Executive said.

Mike joined ARRB in 2002 as a Senior Research Engineer with capabilities in low volume & unsealed road engineering and in road network management systems. In 2004, he was appointed Research Operations Manager and in 2008 was appointed Executive Manager for the ARRB Academy. He has a particular passion for development of staff and seeing them become the best they can be, and provides close support to the leadership team and HR team in that regard.

As CRO, he will continue to build relationships with universities, and help the organisation grow its revenue from genuine, world-leading and valued applied research. Together with the Research Leaders and technical leadership of the organisation, he will act as custodian of the National Research Plan and our research quality standards. In close co-operation with the Chief Operating Officer and State Technical Leaders, he will seek out opportunities within ARRB's customer base and current workload for exciting, reputation building applied research to supplement ARRB's portfolio of CEO Innovation Fund research and our Interns Program research.

“I am looking forward to working with staff and the rest of the leadership team to tackle the key challenges for the Research Office; promote a culture of creativity amongst all of our talented staff, find outlets for that creativity in applied research projects for our customers, and to help staff develop to their full potential – no matter what their role at ARRB - whilst they shape our transport future. Being part of a leadership team that gets to work with staff of the calibre of ARRB’s is a true privilege for which I am grateful.” says Mike.

Mike can be reached at mike.shackleton@arrb.com.au