Heads of College
- Professor Martin Barstow: Head of the College of Science and Engineering
- Professor Elizabeth Murphy: Head of the College of Social Science
- Professor Douglas Tallack: Head of the College of Arts, Humanities and Law
- Professor David Wynford-Thomas: Head of the College of Medicine, Biological Sciences and Psychology
Professor Martin Barstow
Head of the College of Science and Engineering
Pro-Vice-Chancellor
Martin Barstow is Professor in Astrophysics and Space Science at the University of Leicester and currently Head of the Physics and Astronomy department. He has been involved in many space missions during his career, including NASA’s Voyager probes, which travelled to the outer planets of the Solar System. More recently he has worked on the Hubble Space Telescope helping to develop the plans for the final servicing mission, which is expected to take place in May 2009.
Martin has been closely involved with the development of the National Space Centre in Leicester and is the current Chair of its Education Advisory Board. In 2005, he acted as consultant to the British National Space Centre to help develop a Space Education Initiative, which led to the report “Bringing Space into School Science”. In 2008, he was a member of the Wakeham panel, set up by the government to report on the health of Physics in the UK.
He is also an active musician as a member of the choir and part-time organist at St Michael and All Angels, Cosby and has sung at the De Montfort Hall on several occasions in the Bardi Symphony Chorus. He is regularly seen performing around the county as a member of Leicester Morrismen.
He said: “I am very pleased to be appointed to lead the new College of Science and Engineering. I am looking forward to working with all my colleagues in this and the other Colleges to build on the University’s recent successes and to help make Leicester recognised around the world for its excellent teaching and research.”
Professor Elizabeth Murphy
Head of the College of Social Science
Pro-Vice-Chancellor
Professor Murphy has an MA from the University of St Andrews, an MSc in Advanced Social and Educational Research Methods from the Open University and a PhD from the University of Southampton.
Her empirical research covers a wide range of topics in health and social care, including diabetes, back pain, smoking, infant feeding, motherhood, teenage pregnancy, nutritional health, vaginal symptoms, learning disabilities, inpatient care for people with dementia, the extension of prescribing rights, previously restricted to doctors, to nurses and pharmacists and an evaluation of the Yellow Card Scheme for reporting adverse drug reactions.
These are drawn together by a common interest in the relationship between individuals, families, professionals and the state. In particular, this research has been concerned with the ways in which, in contemporary liberal states, power operates through discourses that define what is good, moral, responsible and legitimate. It explores the possibilities of resistance that exist for clients and professionals who are caught up in such discourses in relation to the delivery of health and social care. Much of this research has involved collaborations with colleagues from other disciplines.
Her methodological scholarship focuses upon the applications of social science methods to policy-relevant research. This includes extended work on the application of qualitative methods and mixed methods approaches to health policy research and an interdisciplinary collaborative study identifying optimal methods for eliciting professional and end-user requirements in the design and development of medical devices.
Professor Douglas Tallack
Head of the College of Arts, Humanities and Law
Pro-Vice-Chancellor
Professor of American Studies
- 0116 252 2679
- prof.d.tallack@le.ac.uk
- College of Arts, Humanities and Law
- Professor Tallack's staff page
He holds honorary guest professorships at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and Shanghai International Studies University, and was Grolier Club (New York) Fellow (2008). He has been a member of the UK Government’s Marshall Commission and the Advisory Board of the Observatory for Borderless Education, as well as local school and college governing bodies. He directed the 3Cities project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council.
His research areas are: American fiction; American intellectual and cultural history; Visual culture and theory; Urban culture, history and literature; Critical theory; Modernism and postmodernism.
Professor David Wynford-Thomas
Head of the College of Medicine, Biological Sciences and Psychology
Dean of Medicine
Pro-Vice-Chancellor
After qualifying, with honours, in Medicine and Surgery in 1978, followed by a PhD in Experimental Pathology in 1982, Professor Wynford-Thomas won an NIH post-doctoral fellowship to work at the University of Colorado on the then newly-emerging Molecular Biology of Cancer. This remained his major research interest and, following his return to Cardiff, he built up a large and highly respected research team studying the molecular basis of cancer and its clinical applications, with long-term funding from Cancer Research UK and the Medical Research Council. More recently, he was instrumental in forging closer collaborative links between cancer research groups working in different Departments and Schools at Cardiff, culminating in the establishment of a ‘virtual institute’ for cancer research across Wales.
External recognition of his research achievements include the award in 2005 of the first ‘Goudie Medal’ by the Pathological Society of Great Britain "for seminal advances in the understanding of human disease" and election to the highly prestigious Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2003. In addition, in 2007, the Institute of Medical Genetics, part of the School of Medicine at Cardiff, received the Queen's Anniversary Prize, which recognises world-class levels of excellence in UK Higher Education, from Her Majesty the Queen.
On the national scene, he has served on numerous research committees including those of the Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK, and is subject editor of the British Journal of Cancer.
Aside from research, he played major roles in the wider management of Cardiff University, becoming Head of the Department of Pathology in 1992, Chair of the Division of Clinical Laboratory Sciences in 2000 and Head of the School of Medicine in 2005. Professor Wynford-Thomas was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Leicester in 2008 and is also a non-Executive Director of the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust Board.
