Announcement from the Chair: Suzanna Ward Appointed as Executive Director
Announcement from Susan Bourne, Chair of Trustees, on behalf of the board of trustees.
The Board of Trustees of The CCDC is pleased to announce that Suzanna Ward has been appointed as Executive Director with effect from 1 July 2025.
Suzanna Ward has a Master of Chemistry with Professional Training degree from the University of Southampton. She trained as a crystallographer under Professor Mike Hursthouse before joining the CCDC as a scientific editor responsible for curation and validation of small molecule crystal structures into the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD). Over the past two decades, Ward has led teams of data and deposition scientists culminating in her appointment first as Head of Database and then Head of Data and Community at The CCDC.
Throughout her career at The CCDC, Ward has championed efforts to improve data accessibility, foster collaboration, and develop tools that support the global structural science community. She was instrumental in the implementation of the Frank H. Allen International Research and Education (FAIRE) programme, which promotes access to structural data for scientists in underrepresented countries, and in the establishment of the CSD Champions network, which delivers education and training worldwide.
Ward will be well known to many in the crystallographic community as the face of The CCDC at numerous international meetings. She has also built strong networks across academia, industry, and publishing. Ward is currently the Vice-President of the British Crystallographic Association and a Consultant to the IUCr Commission on Crystallographic Teaching.
The Trustees look forward to working with Suzanna Ward as The CCDC embarks on a new chapter in its mission to advance structural science for the public benefit through data, community, and scientific tools.