Professor Deborah Ashby has accepted the appointment as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, for a term of five years, effective from 1 January 2024. Professor Ashby has been the interim Dean since 1 August 2023 following Professor Jonathan Weber’s retirement as Dean.
Reporting to the Provost, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine is responsible for all aspects of the Faculty’s strategy, operations and finances. As Dean, Professor Ashby will also be a member of Imperial’s Council and its University Management Board (UMB).
Prior to her appointment as Interim Dean, Professor Ashby was Director of Imperial’s School of Public Health. Since joining Imperial in 2008, she has held a number of other leadership positions, including Founding Co-Director of the Imperial Clinical Trials Unit. She is a Chartered Statistician and her research interests are in clinical trials, risk-benefit decision making for medicines, and the utility of Bayesian approaches in these areas. Professor Ashby was awarded the OBE for services to medicine in 2009, appointed an NIHR Senior Investigator in 2010, elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2012 and was elected President of the Royal Statistical Society for 2019 and 2020.