Professor Shearer West

Professor Shearer West is the seventh Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Nottingham, taking up office on 2 October 2017.

Professor West is a Professor of Art History and has held a number of significant leadership roles in universities and higher education. She obtained her BA degree in Art History and English at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, and her PhD in Art History at St. Andrews.

Following her PhD, Professor West worked as an editor for the Grove Dictionary of Art before taking up her first academic post at the University of Leicester.  In 1996, she moved to the University of Birmingham as Head of the History of Art Department, then Head of the School of Historical Studies, and Acting Head of the College of Arts and Law. She was awarded a personal chair in 2000.

In 2008 Professor West was appointed Director of Research at the Arts and Humanities Research Council where she also chaired the Research Directors Group for Research Councils UK. She was appointed Head of the Humanities Division at Oxford in 2011, where she oversaw the launch of the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and the Ertegun Graduate Scholarship Programme in the Humanities. She was appointed Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Sheffield in 2015.

Professor West joined the University of Nottingham as Vice-Chancellor and President in October 2017, publishing the institution’s new University Strategy in December 2019. She is currently a member of the Universities UK Board to help deliver its mission to maximise the higher education sector’s positive impact for staff, students and the public, through the highest quality teaching, research and scholarship. She is also a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery and a member of the Independent Schools Governing Body of King Edward’s Foundation, Birmingham.