Council

Professor Chris Day has been Vice-Chancellor and President of Newcastle University since January 2017.

Previously a Consultant Hepatologist with an international reputation in medical research, he is a Fellow and former Clinical Vice-President of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He has served on the Council of the Medical Research Council and the Executive of the Medical Schools Council and chaired the Clinical Medicine Sub-Panel for the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) Exercise. For REF 2021, he chaired of the Institutional Environment Pilot Panel, for the assessment of the research environment at institution level. Professor Day is currently Vice-Chair of the Russell Group, a member of the Council of the All-Party Parliamentary University Group and serves on the Advisory Board of the UPP Foundation. He is a former Chair of the Board of the Office for Strategic Co-ordination of Health Research (OSCHR) and of the N8 Group of research universities. He is a Deputy Lieutenant of Tyne and Wear.

Debra Humphris joined University of Brighton in December 2015 from Imperial College in London, where she held the positions of Pro-Rector (Education) and Vice-Provost (Education) between 2012 and 2015. In three years she effected real change in the college’s position on teaching and learning, having developed and implemented the college’s first education and student strategy – with extensive consultation and involvement from staff, students, the Students’ Union and alumni.

Originally qualifying as a Registered Nurse, Debra spent 20 years in the NHS including Senior Research Fellow at the South Thames Regional Health Authority, and at St George’s Hospital Medical School. She achieved her PhD in 1999, which considered the implementation of policy into clinical practice.

Professor Trevor McMillan OBE became Vice-Chancellor of Keele University in August 2015.

Before moving to Keele as Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost in January 2014, Professor McMillan was Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research at Lancaster University, where he led several major academic developments and was the lead for many partnerships with other universities and external organisations in the UK and abroad. Prior to his role of PVC at Lancaster Professor McMillan was Dean of the Institute of Environmental and Natural Sciences and Head of the Department of Biological Sciences.

Currently, he has a national role as Knowledge Exchange Champion for Research England. As part of this Professor McMillan has recently published a report on technology transfer from universities, the recommendations of which have been supported by the government, in part through inclusion in the Industrial Strategy. He is also leading the development of the Knowledge Exchange Concordat with UUK/GuildHE and Research England.

Professor Judith Petts CBE took up her appointment as Vice-Chancellor of Plymouth University in February 2016.

After graduating with a BA (Hons) Geography from Exeter University in 1975, Professor Judith Petts, CBE, went out into the commercial world, including international banking (Barclays International) and a retail planning consultancy company, returning to research posts at Nottingham University and then Loughborough University from 1980. She completed her PhD by publications (Loughborough University) in 1996: "Risk Management at the Local Authority Level: Managing the Technical Institutional-Public Interface". She was a lecturer/senior lecturer in Centre for Hazard and Risk Management, Loughborough from 1987, becoming Centre Director in 1997.

In 1999, Professor Petts was appointed to the Chair in Environmental Risk Management at University of Birmingham and became Head of the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences in 2001/2. In 2007 she was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor, taking the Research and Knowledge Transfer portfolio. In 2010 Judith moved to the University of Southampton to become the inaugural Dean of the new Faculty of Social and Human Sciences and then in January 2014 was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor Research and Enterprise.