Karen O'Brien | |
---|---|
25th Vice-Chancellor and Warden of Durham University | |
Assumed office January 2022 | |
Preceded by | Stuart Corbridge |
Personal details | |
Alma mater | University College,Oxford St Cross College,Oxford |
Salary | £353,000 (2022–23) [1] |
Karen Elisabeth O'Brien FRSA is a British academic administrator and scholar of English literature,specialising in the Enlightenment and eighteenth-century literature. [2] Since 2022,she has been Vice-Chancellor and Warden of Durham University [3] (the first woman to hold the office),having previously been Professor of English Literature and Head of the Humanities Division,University of Oxford,and a Fellow of University College,Oxford. [4] [5]
Prior to her time at Oxford,she was a pro-vice-chancellor at the University of Birmingham [2] and then Vice-Principal for Education at King's College London. [3] [4] O'Brien's scholarly work focuses on the British,American and French Enlightenments,and on British literature more generally between 1660 and 1820. [6] She was awarded her doctoral degree (DPhil) by St Cross College,Oxford in 1986 for a thesis on English, [7] after having completed her undergraduate studies at University College. [8] She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts,and an Honorary Fellow of Peterhouse,Cambridge. [9]
Merton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to support it. An important feature of de Merton's foundation was that this "college" was to be self-governing and the endowments were directly vested in the Warden and Fellows.
Sir James Fitzjames Duff was an English academic and Vice-chancellor of Durham University.
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Peter Mathias, was a British economic historian and the former Chichele Professor of Economic History at the University of Oxford. His research focused on the history of industry, business, and technology, both in Britain and Europe. He is most well known for his publication of The First Industrial Nation: an Economic History of Britain 1700–1914 (1969), which discussed not only the multiple factors that made industrialisation possible, but also how it was sustained.
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Durham University is a collegiate public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charter in 1837. It was the first recognised university to open in England for more than 600 years, after Oxford and Cambridge, and is thus the third-oldest university in England. As a collegiate university, its main functions are divided between the academic departments of the university and its 17 colleges. In general, the departments perform research and provide teaching to students, while the colleges are responsible for their domestic arrangements and welfare.
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Marian Elizabeth Hobson Jeanneret, is a British scholar of French philosophy, and culture. From 1992 to 2005, she was Professor of French at Queen Mary, University of London. She had previously taught at the University of Warwick, the University of Geneva, and the University of Cambridge. In 1977, she became the first woman to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Judith Ruth Buchanan is a British academic specialising in Shakespeare and film studies. Since October 2019, she has been Master of St Peter's College, Oxford. Since January 2023, she has been a Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford.