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Information regarding the membership of the UCL Council, including roles and responsibilities and registered interests.
The Chair is appointed from among the Council's appointed members for a term of office to be determined by the Council. The term of office of the Chair shall not normally exceed five years.
Roles and responsibilities
Register of member interests
Ex Officio members
- President and Provost (since 2013)
- Professor Michael Arthur
Professor Michael Arthur is President and Provost of UCL. Prior to this he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds, and formerly Professor of Medicine (1992), Head of the School of Medicine (1998-2001) and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences in Southampton (2003-04). He is a hepatologist with research interests in liver cell biology developed initially at the University of California, San Francisco (1986-1988) and then as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York (2002). In 2015, Professor Arthur became the first Vice-Chancellor of a Russell Group University to become a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Professor Arthur has a significant national and international profile. He was Chair of the Advisory Group for National Specialised Services (NHS) (2010-2013) and was a long standing member of the Council of the Medical Research Council (2006 - Sept 2014). He has also been a US/UK Fulbright Commissioner and is a former Chair of both the Worldwide Universities Network and the Russell Group of Universities. He is currently Chair of the Russell Group EU Advisory Group and a Board Member of LERU (League of European Research Universities).
Professor Arthur took up his current post on 1st September 2013.
- Education Officer, Students' Union UCL (since 2019)
- Ashley Slanina-Davies
Ashley Slanina-Davies is a Neuroscience student whose current interests lie in trying to understand how different mental illnesses might affect decision making. At the Students' Union she is the Education Officer, representing the academic needs of UCL students, and Chair of the Board of Trustees.
Prior to becoming a student Ashley had a career as an actress, which gave her an opportunity to work with charities such as the NSPCC, CLIC Sargent and Action for Blind People, which she credits with stoking her interests in the social determinants of mental ill-health. Between acting and studying Ashley worked in health and fitness, as a yoga teacher, sport's massage therapist, cardiac rehabilitation specialist and baby massage therapist - collaborating with individuals to create tailored programmes that holistically support and empower individuals' ability to make choices that impact their physical and mental wellbeing.
- Democracy, Operations and Community Officer, Students' Union UCL (since 2019)
- Caroline Paige
Caroline Paige is a MSci Earth Science graduate and is currently taking a sabbatical from her MSc in Risk, Disaster and Resilience.
She is currently the Democracy, Operations and Community Sabbatical Officer and a member of the Board of Trustees of Students' Union UCL. Whether it's pulling pints in the Huntley bar or leading Academic Representative training, Caroline has been an active member of the Students' Union whilst studying her undergraduate and now postgraduate degrees.
Her current remit includes oversight of the policy and governance of the Union, sustainability, the Union's spaces and its promotional strategy.
Appointed members
11 members (not employees of UCL or students) are appointed by Council.
- Mr Mintoo Bhandari (since 2019)
Mr. Bhandari is a professional investor, entrepreneur and social impact sponsor.
Over the past 30 years, Mr. Bhandari has been an active institutional private equity investor, focused significantly on credit and distressed asset investing and has served as a fiduciary, including for the endowment of Harvard University and advising other academic institutions. He currently serves on three corporate boards, one in each of the US, UK and India and has in the past served on the boards of more than twenty corporations across these geographies.
He is currently the Founder, Managing Director & CEO of London based financial services firm Monument Corporation Ltd (UK) and was, until early 2018, Senior Partner of Apollo Global Management (NYSE “APO”) and Senior Partner & Managing Director of Apollo’s India vehicles: AGM India Advisors Pvt Ltd and AION Capital Partners. He joined Apollo in 2006 in its New York headquarters, worked in the London office and then launched Apollo’s India advisory firm (AGM India Advisors Pvt Ltd) in Mumbai in 2008.
Mr. Bhandari is also currently active in various charitable and social impact initiatives including serving as Strategic Advisor to Kailash Satyarthi (Awarded Nobel Peace Prize, 2014), and is the Chairman of the UK Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, founder of the Freedom Fellows Scholarship Program and a member of the India Advisory Council for the Harvard-TH Chan School of Public Health.
Mr. Bhandari is a graduate with distinction of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Mech Eng, S.B. ’87) and the Harvard Business School (MBA ’92). He has published numerous articles and speaks frequently regarding macro-economic, finance and investment topics. He lives in London, England with his wife and two daughters.
- Mr Dominic Blakemore (since 2015)
- Dominic Blakemore was appointed Group Chief Executive for Compass Group PLC in January 2018, having joined the Board in February 2012. Mr Blakemore was previously Chief Financial Officer of Iglo Foods Group Limited, which he joined in October 2010 from Cadbury Plc, where he was Europe Finance and Strategy Director. He had previously held senior finance roles as Corporate Finance Director and Group Financial Controller at Cadbury, and was a Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
- Mr Victor Chu (since 2019)
- Victor Chu has been chair of UCL Council since 1st August 2019. Victor Chu was born in Canton, China and came to Hong Kong at the age of four. He received his early education in Hong Kong and England, and took his law degree at University College London where he is now an honorary fellow.
Mr Chu is Chairman and CEO of First Eastern Investment Group, a leading Hong Kong-based international investment firm and a pioneer of private equity investments in China. He is a Co-Founder and Director of Peach Aviation in Japan, as well as a Board Member of Airbus SE.
Over the last 30 years, Victor Chu has at various times served as Director and Council Member of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Member of the Hong Kong Takeovers and Mergers Panel, Advisory Committee Member of the Securities and Futures Commission, and part-time member of Hong Kong Government's Central Policy Unit. Mr Chu has also served as a Foundation Board Member of the World Economic Forum from 2003 to 2015 and currently co-chairs the Forum's International Business Council. He is Chairman of the Hong Kong-Europe Business Council.
Victor Chu has served on the Governing Council of University College London and the Foreign Affairs University of China. He is a Trustee of Asia House in London and Hong Kong, as well as a member of the advisory boards of Chatham House, the Oxford Martin School and the Atlantic Council of the USA.
Mr Chu was awarded the 2011 Global Economy Prize by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
- Dr Andrew Gould (since 2015)
Andrew Gould is a leading figure in the real estate and built environment sector. He was awarded his PhD in economic geography at St John’s College Cambridge and afterwards helped launch Segal Quince & Partners, the Cambridge-based economic and management consultancy. He has a Corporate Finance Diploma from London Business School. His career has blended client advice and strategy in real estate and urban development with executive business leadership at a high level. He advised on many of the major development and regeneration projects in London and other European cities. He is now a principal in Genr8 Developments, a leading urban regeneration investment and development company, delivering sustainable urban renewal projects in UK cities. He was formerly UK Chief Executive of Jones Lang LaSalle, where he led the successful merger with King Sturge, one of the largest ever mergers in the sector.
He is Chairman of the UK Green Building Council, a membership-based charity with 400+ members drawn from the full spectrum of the built environment sector. Its mission is to radically improve the sustainability of the built environment by transforming the way it is planned, designed, constructed, maintained and operated.
He is a Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge; and a member of the Cambridge Land Economy Advisory Board. He Chairs the Investor & Developer Group of the London-Cambridge-Stansted Corridor initiative – a Government-backed partnership to accelerate economic growth in the region.
- Ms Lindsay Nicholson MBE (since 2014)
- Lindsay Nicholson studied Astronomy & Physics at UCL but it was her work on the student newspaper Pi that landed her a place on the Mirror Group Newspaper Training Scheme. From newspapers she moved to magazines and in 2006 she became Editorial Director of The National Magazine Company overseeing magazines including Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar and Esquire as well as editing Good Housekeeping which under her leadership became the biggest-selling glossy magazine in Britain.
During her career Lindsay won almost every major industry award both for print and digital, including the BSME Mark Boxer Lifetime Achievement Award and was twice named PPA Editor of the Year. She has campaigned ceaselessly around the progression of women in science and in 2004 was made a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
In 2018, she was awarded the MBE for services to journalism and equal opportunities.
- Mr Turlogh O'Brien CBE (since 2018)
- Turlogh O'Brien graduated with a B.Sc in Chemistry from Trinity College, Oxford. He joined Ove Arup & Partners to advise engineers and architects on materials for construction and at the same time lectured on materials at the Bartlett School of Architecture. During his time at UCL he was also a member of Professor Duccio Turin’s research team.
During his long career at Arup, Turlogh had many roles, including leading Arup Research & Development and overseeing a number of the specialist consultancies, including Fire Engineering which he initiated in 1974 with Margaret Law. After stepping down as Deputy Chairman, he was active in the Arup Foundation which funds educational initiatives, particularly focusing on multi-disciplinary studies.
Since leaving Arup, Turlogh has been involved in housing and universities. He was chairman of London & Quadrant Housing Trust, and latterly chair of the Governing Board of Chartered Institute of Housing. He was a member of Council at University of Southampton until 2017. In addition, he has been a member of the Ethics and Governance Council of UK Biobank.
Turlogh has been very involved in institutions and committees relating to construction. He is currently chair of the Construction Industry Council’s After Grenfell Expert Fire Panel, which is working on the changes that are needed in construction to properly address the issues of life safety in ‘higher risk’ buildings.
Turlogh was made a CBE in 1999 for services to research and innovation in construction.
- Lord John Sharkey (since 2017)
- John Sharkey has spent most of his commercial life in communications businesses. He was joint managing director of Saatchi and Saatchi UK, founded and ran his own advertising agency and was chair of various other communications and recruitment enterprises. He became strategic communications advisor to Nick Clegg in 2007 and was chair of the Liberal Democrat’s General Election campaign in 2010 and of the 2011 Fairer Votes campaign. He is Chair of the Hansard Society, a founding director of the financial services think-tank New City Agenda Ltd and a director of the not-for-profit fact checking organisation, Full Fact Ltd. He is also chair of the Association of Medical Research Charities and Chair of the Specialised Healthcare Alliance. He is a member of the House of Lords and of its Economic Affairs Select Committee.
- Mr Philip Sturrock MBE (since 2015)
Philip Sturrock joined UCL Council following the merger of with the Institute of Education in December 2014. He was formerly a member of IoE Council and Chair of its Finance and General Purposes Committee. He read Modern History at Oxford and has an MBA from the Manchester Business School.
Mr Sturrock’s professional career has been in book publishing. He has been CEO of IBIS information Services, Pitman Books, Routledge, Cassell and Continuum. In 1994 he led the IPO of Cassell on the London Stock Exchange before selling it to Hachette in 1998.
Following his publishing career he has been Chair of the United St Saviour’s Charity in Southwark, Chair of the Wandle Housing Association and Chair of Governors at Queen Mary’s Grammar School in Walsall. In addition he has been a member of the Industrial Development Advisory Board at the Department of Business and the Investment Panel of the British Business Bank. He is a Trustee of the Southwark Cathedral Development Fund, having lived in Southwark before moving to Dorset.
In the Queen’s Birthday Honours of 2014 he was appointed MBE for “services to business, charity and community in SE London.”
- Mr Justin Turner QC (since 2017)
- Justin Turner is a barrister in private practice who specialises in patent law and other commercial disputes of a technical nature. After graduating from the Royal Veterinary College he spent a short spell in practice before studying for a PhD in immunology at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. His modest accomplishments at the bench led him to abandon his cell cultures for a career in law. Justin was formerly a member of the Gene Therapy Advisory Committee (GTAC) and a board member UK Anti-Doping.
- Baroness Jo Valentine (since 2014)
- Baroness Valentine's career spans the city, industry, campaigning and regeneration. She is currently working in Blackpool on behalf of Business in the Community, bringing together businesses to tackle systemic issues in the community and create a positive and resilient community.
Jo Valentine previously ran London First for many years. She joined the organisation in 1997 as Managing Director, becoming Chief Executive in 2003. Her role centred on representing to national and local government the most pressing issues affecting London’s leading businesses.
Prior to London First, Jo Valentine worked in corporate finance and planning at Barings and BOC Group. She established and ran ‘The Blackburn Partnership’, a public-private regeneration partnership, in 1988. She was a National Lottery Commissioner from 2000 to 2005.
She became a Crossbench Peer in October 2005 and contributes frequently to debates, mainly on economic and competitiveness issues. Her recent non-executive roles include Board Member of the HS2 and Non-Executive Director of Peabody. She is an Honorary Fellow of St Hugh’s College Oxford and of Birkbeck College and holds honorary degrees from the University of London and Roehampton.
- Ms Sarah Whitney (since 2017)
- Sarah is a Chartered Accountant and real estate specialist. She advises clients in the built and natural assets sector on real estate, economics, finance and investment issues. In a 30-year career, Sarah has worked with national governments, local authorities, banks, universities, property developers, and major corporates and investors, both in the UK and internationally.
Sarah’s executive career was spent at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she was a corporate finance partner; at DTZ (now Cushman & Wakefield), where she was head of the Consulting & Research business and served on the DTZ Global Executive Committee; and at CBRE, where she headed the Government & Infrastructure team and served on the UK board. More recently, Sarah was one of the founder directors of Metro Dynamics, a specialist consultancy focused on the application of data analytics to city growth and development.
Sarah is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge where she teaches Planning, Growth and Regeneration at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. She is also a Trustee of the Land Trust, where she chairs the Audit Committee.
Elected members
3 Professors elected by and from the professorial members of Academic Board.
- Professor Lucie Clapp (since 2015)
- Lucie Clapp is Professor of Vascular Physiology at the UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science. She received her degree in Pharmacology from Bristol University and her PhD from St Georges' Hospital Medical School, London. She was a postdoctoral fellow and Instructor in Physiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (1985-1988) before returning and working in the Pharmacology Department at St Thomas' Hospital, London. She joined the UCL Division of Medicine in 1996, was appointed Reader in 2002 and Professor in 2006.
She has served as a postgraduate tutor for several years at UCL and has shown leadership in teaching by creating and directing undergraduate courses and co-organising PhD programmes.
Professor Clapp has won numerous awards and accolades for her research on the biophysical and functional properties of ion channels, including the Howard Sprague Fellowship from the American Heart Association (AHA), Welcome Trust Career Development Award and two Senior Fellowships from the Medical Research Council. She was elected Fellow of the AHA in 2001, Fellow of the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute in 2010, Fellow of the Society of Biology in 2011 and Fellow of the British Pharmacology Society in 2016.
A central theme of more recent research has been the development of novel treatments and biomarkers for pulmonary arterial hypertension. For two decades, Professor Clapp has collaborated with several Pharma and USA Biotech companies in this field and been invited to speak around the world in advisory, scientific and medical educational roles and was recently awarded the prestigious AstraZeneca prize for Women in Pharmacology.
- Professor Annette Dolphin (since 2016)
- Annette Dolphin received her BA in Natural Sciences (Biochemistry) from the University of Oxford and her PhD from University of London, Institute of Psychiatry. She then held postdoctoral fellowships at the College de France in Paris, and at
Yale University, before returning to UK to the National Institute for Medical Research, London; followed by a lectureship in the Pharmacology Department of St. George’s Hospital Medical School, London University. She was appointed Chair of the Department of Pharmacology at Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London University in 1990, and moved to University College London in 1997. She is Professor of Pharmacology in the Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology at UCL. She was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1999, and the Royal Society in 2015. She is currently a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator, and leads a research group working in the field of neuronal voltage-gated calcium channels, and their involvement in a number of diseases.
- Professor Patrick Haggard (since 2017)
- Patrick Haggard is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, and works at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience on Queen Square. His research interests include the psychological and neural mechanisms of human volition, and the sensory basis of self-awareness. His research methods typically involve experimental measurements of conscious experience, and physiological measurements of its possible neural correlates. His research has been funded by multiple UK research councils, European Research Council, Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust, several private foundations and by major companies. He was awarded the International Jean Nicod Prize in 2016, and the Evens Foundation Science Prize in 2017. He leads a research group of 15 people, and has a special interest in mentoring and progression of early career researchers. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and trustee and treasurer of the Experimental Psychology Society.
3 non-professorial academic staff elected by and from the elected non-professorial academic staff members of Academic Board.
- Dr Martin Fry (since 2013)
Dr Fry, Lecturer in Medical Electronics in the Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering at UCL, was educated at: UCL (BSc(Eng) in Electronic and Electrical Engineering 1985); the Medical College of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, University of London (MSc in Medical Electronics and Physics, 1986), and the University of Exeter (PhD in Physics, 1990). His interest in health-related applications of science and engineering was formed through a childhood spent tinkering with electronics and growing up with an elder brother who has cerebral palsy. This interest was further focused as an undergraduate when he became critically ill with meningococcal septicaemia, meningitis and associated cardiac and neurological complications. He has held the following appointments: NHS Medical Physicist, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital (1986-1987); Energy Scientist, Centre for Energy and the Environment, University of Exeter (1990-1992); Arthritis and Rheumatism Council funded Research Fellow, MRI Group, Department of Physics, University of Exeter (1992-1995); Research Associate, Medical Electronics Group, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Bristol (1995-1997); Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Biophysics, Bristol Royal Infirmary (1995-1997); Wellcome Trust funded Senior Research Fellow, Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering at UCL (1997-2000). He was the first recipient of the J A Lodge Award for Engineering in Medicine, awarded by the IEE (Institution of Electrical Engineers) which in 2006 became the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology).
In 2014 Dr Fry was one of the 20 founding members of the UCL Staff Disability Forum launching the enable@ucl network in 2015 to exchange ideas and raise awareness of disability equality.
- Professor Hynek Pikhart (since 2017)
- Hynek Pikhart is Professor of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics at UCL. He gained his MSc at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic in 1993. In 1995 he obtained a Masters in Medical Statistics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London. In 2000 he successfully finished his PhD in Epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at UCL and has worked in the department since 1999.
His current research focuses on determinants of health in countries of Central and Eastern Europe particularly using The Health, Alcohol and Psychosocial factors In Eastern Europe (HAPIEE) Study. His work includes research on the measurement of socioeconomic position in relation to various health outcomes, analysing and explaining the role of psychosocial factors in health, and explaining social variations in health in several countries undergoing social and economic transformation. He has recently coordinated UCL part of EU-SANCO funded INEQ-CITIES project, EU-FP7 funded DRIVERS project and Horizon2020 funded Euro-Healthy projects. Hynek is one of the directors of the MSc Population Health and UCL Summer School in Population and Public Health.
- Professor Andrew Wills (since 2016)
- Andrew Wills is Professor in Physical Materials Chemistry at UCL. He joined UCL as a Royal Society Senior Research Fellow in 2002, following undergraduate studies at Oxford University, a Ph.D. from Edinburgh University and positions at McMaster University, the Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Grenoble - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CENG-CEA), the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and the Institut Max von Laue-Paul Langevin (ILL). His research interests are focussed on discovering new magnetic properties and new states of matter. This field crosses the traditional disciplines of chemistry and physics and brings together symmetry theory, materials synthesis, physical property measurement, and research software engineering. Within UCL Dr Wills has worked on several of UCL’s standing committees and helped UCL realise its programmes for research-based learning and staff development, the Connected Curriculum and ARENA. His commitment to education has been recognised by a Senior Fellowship from the HEA and 2 Provost’s Teaching Awards, and his research has won several national awards, including the Times Higher Education Research Project of the Year. (2010).
Secretary
Ms Wendy Appleby