Lizzie Burrows has accepted appointment as the university’s Chief Marketing and Recruitment Officer. Lizzie will lead the Marketing, Outreach, Recruitment and Admissions (MORA) Division, with the Outreach team having joined with Marketing, Recruitment and Admissions from 1 December.
Professor Azra Ghani has accepted appointment as Academic Director for Imperial Global Singapore, with effect from 1 December 2024 for a term of three years. This is a 0.5 FTE role.
Reporting to the Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise), in this role Professor Ghani will provide strategic vision, direction and leadership to the hub.
Professor Ghani is Chair in Infectious Disease Epidemiology in the School of Public Health. She is currently Director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis and she also holds a Visiting Professor appointment at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Professor Ghani’s research has covered a wide range of infectious diseases, including BSE and vCJD, sexually transmitted infections, SARS, COVID-19, influenza and malaria. She is currently a member of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI) Scientific Advisory Committee and is a Trustee for the Science Media Centre.
Professor Ghani was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2017 and she was appointed a Member of the British Order (MBE) in 2021.
Professor Majid Ezzati has accepted appointment as Academic Director for Imperial Global Ghana, with effect from 1 November 2024 for a term of three years. This is a 0.2 FTE role.
Reporting to the Vice-President (Strategic Engagement), in this role Professor Ezzati will provide strategic vision, direction and leadership to the hub.
Professor Ezzati is Professor of Global Environmental Health in the School of Public Health. He is also the Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on NCD Surveillance, Epidemiology and Modelling, and a research lead at the Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics. His research uses data and methods from environmental, health and quantitative sciences to answer key questions related to improving global health.
Professor Maggie Dallman OBE has accepted appointment as Associate Provost (Societal Engagement) with effect from Monday 28 October.
Reporting to the Provost, in this role Professor Dallman will be responsible for creating and driving the new Centre for Societal Engagement as its Founding Academic Director. The Centre is one of the key initiatives of the Imperial Inspires pillar of Imperial’s Strategy, Science for Humanity. Professor Dallman will also lead Imperial’s work to ensure people from all walks of life and ages can engage with and participate in STEM as well as championing the inclusion of diverse public perspectives to enhance our research and wider work. She will continue to lead some of Imperial’s initiatives relevant to this portfolio, including the Imperial Maths School.
Amanda Wolthuizen has accepted appointment as Vice-President (Strategic Engagement), with effect from 28 October 2024.
Reporting to the President, in this role Amanda will be responsible for the development and implementation of Imperial’s Strategy, Science for Humanity. This includes the development of our international strategy and operations, and the implementation of Imperial’s government relations and stakeholder engagement strategy.
Professor Peter Lindstedt has accepted an extension to his term as Associate Provost (Academic Promotions) until 30 September 2026.
Reporting to the Provost, Professor Lindstedt is responsible for oversight of the academic promotions policy and its implementation for Imperial, working in conjunction with the Consuls, Deans, and HR colleagues.
Professor Lindstedt received his PhD from Imperial’s Department of Chemical Engineering, where he went on to work as a Research Associate in 1984. He then joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering as a Lecturer and was promoted to Professor of Thermofluids in 1999. He has served as Head of the Thermofluids Division, Director of Research and Deputy Head of Department. He was elected Consul for the Faculty of Engineering and Business School for the period 2013 to 2016 and Senior Consul from 2017 to 2019.
Professor Lindstedt’s current research interests include reduced environmental impact from propulsion devices, methods for the prediction of particle size distributions of particulate matter from aero-engines, heterogeneous surface-fluid interactions leading to material degradation in fuel cells, catalytically active materials, highly reactive fuels for advanced propulsion applications and turbulence-chemistry interactions occurring during the use of ammonia and other hydrogen-rich fuels.
Harriet Wallace has accepted appointment as Imperial’s first Director of Sustainability. Harriet began transitioning into this role in June from her previous secondment to Imperial as an Imperial Policy Fellow from the Civil Service, working with colleagues on implementing our Sustainability Strategy.
In this new role, Harriet will lead and coordinate delivery of the Sustainable Imperial initiative announced in our new Strategy, working collaboratively with colleagues across Imperial. As the Strategy set out, Imperial’s goal is to set a global benchmark for university sustainability, nurturing graduates who understand and advocate for climate science, supporting our researchers to investigate and respond to planetary challenges and leading by example in our activities and on our campuses.
Harriet will report to the Chief of Staff to the President and continue to work closely with Professor Tim Green, Academic Lead for Sustainability. The Sustainability Programme will continue to be governed by the Sustainability Strategy Committee, chaired by Professor Nigel Brandon, and supported by the central Sustainability Hub team and Sustainability leads and champions across Faculties and Professional Services.
Harriet is a scientist by training and a policy, strategy and change practitioner by profession. She has had a lifelong interest in how we can make the most of science’s potential: for understanding the world better; for solving real-world problems; and to inform and influence both policy-making and human behaviours.
She previously worked in government for many years, most recently as Director International Research and Innovation at BEIS (negotiating the Horizon Europe deal and sponsoring several Research and Funding bodies) and before that in roles on environmental, health and science policy and spending. Before joining government, she worked at Unilever on social and environmental responsibility and their corporate brand.
Kathryn Al-Shemmeri has accepted appointment as Chief People Officer with effect from 4 November 2024.
Reporting directly to the President, Kathryn will be a vital member of the University Management Board and its committees. She will oversee the Human Resources function and provide strategic leadership on all people-related matters.
Kristin Blanchfield has accepted appointment as Imperial’s Vice-President (Advancement), with effect from January 2025.
Reporting to the President, Kristin will lead the Advancement Division to drive funding and alumni engagement in support of our new institutional strategy. She will be a key member of the University Management Board and its committees.
Professor Mark Thursz has accepted the appointment of Director of the Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC), with effect from 1 August 2024, for a term of five years. He succeeds Professor Jonathan Weber who had held this position since 2012. We express our thanks to Professor Weber for his long stint in office and for his unwavering commitment to the AHSC and its NHS partners and to Imperial College London.
Professor Thursz has been the Head of the Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction (MDR) since 2019, a role he will step down from in due course once a new postholder is identified and takes up the post.
Professor Thursz joined Imperial in 1991 as a clinical research fellow and was appointed to a Senior Lectureship in 1997. He was promoted to Professor of Hepatology in 2006. He has held many senior roles within the Department and Faculty, including Head of the Division of Digestive Diseases within MDR, and St Mary’s Campus Director.
He is R&D Director at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, where he is a consultant hepatologist based at St Mary’s Hospital. He is also Director of the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, which in 2022 was awarded a five-year grant of over £95M from the NIHR to support research activity in collaboration with Imperial College London.
Professor Thursz is a former secretary of the British Association for Study of the Liver (BASL) and led the European Association for Study of the Liver, as Secretary-General (2011-13). Professor Thursz’s research interests are focussed on viral hepatitis and alcohol-related liver disease. He established the Prevention of Liver Fibrosis and Cancer in Africa (PROLIFCA) programme to address barriers that prevent the control and elimination of viral hepatitis in countries with limited resources. He also runs a translational research programme in alcohol-related liver disease funded by the MRC and NIHR.