Senior officer profiles
Unless otherwise stated, the contact address for senior officers is:
The University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester
M13 9PL
As well as reading our senior officer profiles below, you can find out more about the people who hold key roles in governing the University:
- Chancellor: Nazir Afzal OBE
- Chair of the Board of Governors: Phillipa Hird
- Pro-Chancellor: Jim Hancock
Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, FRS, President and Vice-Chancellor, leads by example. Her own research in the field of neuroscience, which is ongoing, has contributed towards major advances in the understanding and treatment of brain damage in stroke and head injury.
She joined the Victoria University of Manchester in 1987, became Professor of Physiology in 1994 and held an MRC Research Chair from 1998 to 2010. Concurrent with her Faculty posts she has also held University roles as Vice-President for Research (2004–2007) and as Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (2007–2010).
She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in June 2004 and made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in June 2005 in recognition of her services to science. In September 2016 she began a year-long term as President of the British Science Association.
Professor RothwelL became President and Vice-Chancellor in July 2010, the first woman to lead The University of Manchester or either of its two predecessor institutions.
She was the founding President of the Royal Society of Biology, and has also served as co-Chair of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology, and as a non-executive director of AstraZeneca. She is currently Chair of the Russell Group, a Deputy Lieutenant for Greater Manchester, a Commissioner on the Law Family Commission on Civil Society, and a member of the UK Investment Council, the Oxford Road Corridor Board, the Northern Powerhouse Partnership Board, the UK Biobank Board and the Times Education Commission.
Dame Nancy takes a strong and active interest in public communication of science.
Find out more about the President and Vice-Chancellor's role and remuneration.
The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PT
Tel: +44 (0) 161 306 6010
Email: president@manchester.ac.uk
Professor Luke Georghiou, Deputy President and Vice-Chancellor
Professor Luke Georghiou is the University’s Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, providing strategic leadership and operational management across the full-range of University functions.
From 2010 to 2017 as Vice President for Research and Innovation, Luke was responsible for the University’s research strategy and its implementation and doctoral training, prior to this he held the post of Deputy Dean and Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Humanities. He continues in his current role to be responsible for business engagement and commercialisation activities. He is active in research and policy advice to government and business with work on innovation management, public procurement and innovation and evaluation of the national demonstrator project for Internet of Things (CityVerve).
Luke has chaired, and been a member of, several high-level inquiries and advisory bodies, including being rapporteur of the influential Aho Group report to European leaders, 'Creating an Innovative Europe' which put demand-side innovation policy onto the political agenda. He was a member of RISE, the European Commissioner for Research and Innovation’s high-level policy advisory group. He has chaired several international panels, and was Chairman of the High-level Expert Group on Rationales for the European Research Area which recommended a refocusing of European research and innovation support on a series of grand challenges. He was Co-Champion of the 2016 Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF), Europe’s largest pan-disciplinary science conference.
He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Manchester Science Partnerships, the UK’s largest science park company. Since 2016 he has chaired the Steering Committee of the European Universities Association Council for Doctoral Education. He is on the editorial board of eight journals and has published extensively in leading outlets including Science and Nature. He was elected to the Academia Europaea in 2011.
He is Professor of Science and Technology Policy and Management and holds a PhD (1982) and BSc from The Victoria University of Manchester. Luke was Director of the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research where he had been on the staff of its precursor institute, PREST, since 1997 and was its Executive Director from 1990 to 2004.
Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 5933
Email: luke.georghiou@manchester.ac.uk
Patrick Hackett, Registrar, Secretary and Chief Operating Officer
Patrick Hackett took up his role as Registrar, Secretary and Chief Operating Officer on 1 October 2018. Previously Patrick was Deputy Vice-Chancellor at The University of Liverpool, a position he took up in August 2013, having formerly been Chief Operating Officer since November 2008. Prior to that he held the position of Director of Facilities Management.
An architect by profession, Patrick has a BArch from University College Dublin and has previously held senior leadership positions at The University of Reading and Royal Holloway, University of London. He has also been a consultant, advising higher education institutions across the UK on facilities management organisation and development and the delivery of major capital projects. Patrick was a non-Executive Director of Aintree University Hospital NHS trust for six years until the end of March 2015.
Patrick heads up the PS Leadership Team.
To get in touch with Patrick, please contact:
Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 2066
Email: patrick.hackett-REGISTRAR@manchester.ac.uk
Professor Colette Fagan, FAcSS, Vice-President for Research
Professor Colette Fagan is the University of Manchester’s Vice-President for Research, responsible for leading the University’s research and doctoral training strategy.
Previously Colette was the Deputy Dean and Vice-Dean for Research for the Faculty of Humanities and served concurrently as a Senate-elected representative on the University’s Board of Governors. She is an appointed member of UKRI’s Research England Council, chaired the Russell Group’s PVC-Research Group (2018-2023), and serves on the UUK PVC Research and Innovation Group, and the N8 research partnership Senior Executive Group.
Her commitment to enabling interdisciplinary research includes co-authorship of British Academy’s report Crossing Paths: Interdisciplinary institutions, careers, education and applications.
Colette is an elected Fellow of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences in recognition of her research and policy impact focussed on working conditions and job quality, gender relations and inequalities, working-time and time-use, and international comparative analysis.
She has held visiting academic appointments at universities and research institutes in Australia, Germany and the USA. Her research has been supported by major national and international funders, including the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the European Union’s research framework programmes.
Her research and policy advice includes advisory roles and consultancy with the European Commission and its Eurofound agency, the European Parliament, the United Nations’ International Labour Office and the OECD; and various national government agencies, trade unions and employers’ associations in the EU, Australia, Japan and South Korea.
Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 8860
Email: colette.fagan@manchester.ac.uk
Professor Nalin Thakkar, Vice-President for Social Responsibility
Professor Nalin Thakkar is Vice-President for Social Responsibility, having been previously our Associate Vice-President for Risk, Compliance and Research Integrity.
Nalin is a clinical academic who has been associated with the University for more than 40 years. He undertook his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Manchester and after serving as a lecturer and senior lecturer, he was appointed to Chair of Molecular Pathology in 2003. He was then appointed as Associate Vice-President for Risk, Compliance and Research Integrity in 2010. He is also a Consultant Histopathologist at the Manchester University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and leads a specialist head and neck histopathology service.
Nalin has previously served as the National Advisor to the Health Research Authority and as a National Research Ethics Advisor to the National Research Ethics Service. In 2015, he was appointed to serve as a Non-Executive Director of the Health Research Authority by the Secretary of State for Health. Nalin has also previously served as an Interim Executive Board member of a primary school in Manchester and is currently on the Board of The Walton Centre NHS Trust on Merseyside.
He was listed in the top 50 most influential BAME public sector leaders in the UK in 2017 by Inclusive Boards.
The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9NT
Tel: +44 (0)161 275 2227
Email: n.thakkar@manchester.ac.uk
Professor April McMahon, Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students
Professor April McMahon has been Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students at The University of Manchester since October 2019. Previously, she held academic and leadership roles at the Universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Aberystwyth and Kent.
April was born in Edinburgh and grew up in the Scottish Borders. She was the first in her family to go to university and took her MA and PhD at Edinburgh – where she was proud to be awarded an Honorary Doctorate in 2014.
Her academic field is linguistics. Her research interests include: how and why languages change; the use of computational methods to group languages into families; the evolution of language in humans; and the history of varieties of English and Scots.
April is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Learned Society of Wales. She is an Honorary Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge, and a member of the Board of Trustees of The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 5571
Email: vp-tls@manchester.ac.uk
Professor Graham Lord, MA PhD FRCP FRSB FMedSci, NIHR Senior Investigator, Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health
Graham Lord became Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health in February 2019.
He also holds the role of Executive Director of the Academic Health Science Centre as part of Health Innovation Manchester, and represents the University on the board of the Northern Health Science Alliance.
Professor Lord qualified in medicine from the University of Cambridge in 1991 and undertook a period of general clinical training as a junior doctor in Cambridge, Hammersmith, Oxford and at the Royal Brompton Hospital.
Following specialisation in nephrology, transplantation and general medicine at the Hammersmith Hospital, he undertook a period of research in molecular immunology at Imperial College London that led to a PhD in 2000, funded by an MRC Clinical Training Fellowship.
He was appointed as a Consultant in Nephrology and Transplantation at the Hammersmith in 2003. From 2003 to 2008, funded by an MRC Clinician Scientist award, he was a visiting scientist at Harvard University and then came back to the UK to become the Chair of Medicine at King’s College London.
He has built up a research group at King’s, investigating fundamental immune cell biology and the translation of this knowledge to the diagnosis and treatment of patients with organ transplant rejection and autoimmune diseases. As a consultant at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust he practices clinical nephrology with a particular interest in renal and pancreatic transplantation.
Graham led the successful application for the NIHR BRC at Guy's and St Thomas' and was appointed as Director of the Centre in 2012. In this role, he was responsible for the delivery of programmes of translational research and experimental medicine with a significant part of the Centre's portfolio focussed on regenerative and personalised medicine, advanced therapeutics and informatics.
He was elected as an NIHR Senior Investigator in 2013 and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2016. He has sat on the NIHR Strategy Board and the National Clinical Research Network Co-ordinating Centre Board. He has also advised the UK Government as a member of the Expert Advisory Group of the Accelerated Access Review, representing the BRCs across the UK.
He is also a Consultant Transplant Nephrologist at Manchester NHS Foundation Trust and Executive Director of the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre. He was previously the Professor of Medicine and Head of the Department of Experimental Immunobiology at King’s College London and the Director of the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London from 2012 to 2019, where he retains an Honorary Professorship and Honorary Consultant status.
Graham qualified in Medicine from Cambridge and trained at the Hammersmith Hospital, Oxford and Imperial College as a Clinician Scientist. Following postdoctoral training at Harvard University, USA he moved back to the UK in 2006 and established a research group based on the regulation of the immune system to enhance the treatment of severe auto-inflammatory diseases. He has clinical interests in multi-organ transplantation and the prevention of long-term transplant failure. He founded Gritstone Bio, which is now a publicly listed company in the USA, which delivers next generation vaccines for cancer and infectious diseases, including COVID-19. He has had a long-term interest in Academic Healthcare Ecosystems and how they can catalyse rapid improvements in human health and wealth in a sustainable manner.
Tel: +44 (0)161 306 0533
Email: graham.lord@manchester.ac.uk
Professor Fiona Devine, Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities
Professor Fiona Devine became Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities in August 2023.
At the University – which she joined in 1994 – she is a Professor of Sociology and was previously Head of Sociology (2004 to 2007), Head of the School of Social Sciences (2009 to 2013) and Head of Alliance Manchester Business School (2013 to 2023). Prior to Manchester she worked at the University of Liverpool, the Policy Studies Institute, and the former Department of Employment in London. She studied Sociology and Government as an undergraduate at the University of Essex where she also completed her MA and PhD.
Fiona's research interests are in the fields of social stratification and mobility (with a comparative focus including the US), work and employment, and politics and participation. Much of her research has been funded by grants from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Leverhulme Trust. With a team of colleagues, she was involved in the BBC’s Great British Class Survey, an online survey completed by more than 300,000 people, and a class calculator completed by 9 million people. The results appeared in the book, Social Class in the 21st Century, published by Penguin in 2015.
Fiona was a member of the ESRC and Chair of its International Advisory Committee (2003 to 2007), a member of the Governing Council of the European Science Foundation and the UK representative on the New Opportunities for Research Funding Co-operation Agency in Europe Network Board. She has held visiting positions at the Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and the Institute for Social Science Research, University of Queensland, and was a member of the Research Evaluation Committee for Education and Human Society for Excellence in Research for Australia.
Fiona was a member of the Assembly of the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce (2015 to 2023) and a Chair of the North West Citizen’s Panels for the Bank of England (2018 to 2023). She was awarded an OBE in 2010 and a CBE in 2019 for services to social sciences, elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2011 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in 2014. Fiona is also a companion of the Chartered Management Institute.
Office of the Dean, 182-184 Waterloo Place, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL
Email: fiona.devine@manchester.ac.uk
Professor Martin Schröder, Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering
Professor Schröder gained his BSc in Chemistry from the University of Sheffield, and PhD from Imperial College, University of London. After postdoctoral fellowships at the ETH, Zürich and at the University of Cambridge, he was appointed to a Senior Demonstratorship at the University of Edinburgh in 1982. He was subsequently promoted to Lecturer, Reader and then Professor, and in 1995 was appointed to the University of Nottingham as Head and Professor of Inorganic Chemistry. He was Head of the School of Chemistry at Nottingham (1999-2005) and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science (2011-2015). In 2015, he moved to his current position as Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering and Professor of Chemistry at The University of Manchester.
Martin has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto, Canada, the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand and the Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France. He has published more than 540 papers and patents and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). His awards include the Corday-Morgan Medal and Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Royal Society of Edinburgh Support Research Fellowship, Tilden Lecturer of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Royal Society of Chemistry award for the Chemistry of Transition Metals, a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award, a Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship, and the Royal Society of Chemistry award for Chemistry of the Noble Metals and their Compounds.
He holds a Honorary Doctorate from Tallinn Technical University, Estonia and from the Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, and has been awarded many research awards including two ERC Advanced and two Proof of Concept grants, and EPSRC Programme and Russian Mega grants. In 2016 he was elected Member of the Academia Europaea, and in 2020 he was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry Nyholm Prize for Inorganic Chemistry. He is currently a member of Council of EPSRC.
Martin has published 550 publications and has an h index of 83 with more than 29,000 citations. His research interests lie in coordination and materials chemistry, specifically the design, synthesis and study of porous metal organic framework materials for energy and environmental applications. Current focus lies in the separation and capture of fuel and toxic gases, hydrocarbons and metal values, and applications of porous materials in catalysis, clean-up and proton conductivity.
The University of Manchester, Sackville Street Building, Sackville Street, Manchester M13 9PL
Tel: +44 (0)161 306 9112
Email: m.schroder@manchester.ac.uk
Professor Richard Jones, Vice-President, Regional Innovation and Civic Engagement
Richard Jones is Professor of Materials Physics and Innovation Policy at The University of Manchester; and an experimental soft matter physicist.
His first degree and PhD in Physics both come from Cambridge University and, following postdoctoral work at Cornell University, USA, he was a lecturer at the University of Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory. He was a Professor of Physics at the University of Sheffield from 1998, moving to Manchester in 2020.
In 2006 Richard was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, in recognition of his work in the field of polymers and biopolymers at surfaces and interfaces and in 2009 he won the Tabor Medal of the UK’s Institute of Physics for his contributions to nanoscience.
He is the author of more than 190 research papers, and three books, Polymers at Surfaces and Interfaces (with Randal Richards, CUP 1999), Soft Condensed Matter, (OUP 2002), and Soft Machines: Nanotechnology and Life (OUP 2004).
He was Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation at Sheffield from 2009 to 2016, was a member of EPSRC Council from 2013 to 2018, and chaired Research England’s Technical Advisory Group for the Knowledge Exchange Framework.
Richard was a member of the Sheffield/Manchester Industrial Strategy Commission and has written extensively about science and innovation policy, for example in the recent report The Missing Four Billion: making research and development work for the whole UK (with Tom Forth, NESTA 2020) and is currently a member of the BEIS R&D Place Advisory Group.
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Carol Prokopyszyn, Chief Financial Officer
Carol has made a significant impact within higher education, including at the University of Dundee, Loughborough University and the University of Leicester, where she navigated the financial complexities of our sector, ensured financial sustainability and, most recently, led a significant financial turn-around programme. This included completing the £300 million Tay Cities Deal in partnership with local councils and a focus on sustainable financial investments.
Tel: +44 (0)161 27 52145
Email: carol.prokopyszyn@manchester.ac.uk
Andrew Mullen, Interim Director of People and Organisational Development
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To get in touch with Andrew, please email: andrew.s.mullen@manchester.ac.uk