Professor Anna Philpott will be Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Resources and Operations and Professor Sir John Aston will be Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research.
Professor Anna Philpott - Resources and Operations
Professor Philpott is currently Professor of Cancer and Developmental Biology, and Head of The School of the Biological Sciences at the University. She will take up her new position in October 2024, and takes over from current Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor David Cardwell.
As Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Resources and Operations, Professor Philpott will provide leadership across four principal areas:
- The prioritisation, distribution and use of resources across the University to optimise operational effectiveness
- Integration of academic planning with resource planning
- Oversight of the University’s change programmes
- Oversight of the University’s IT and digital capability
Early priorities will be around delivering changes in systems and processes behind a number of significant operational areas, including finances, human resources and the University estate, to best position Cambridge to meet its academic needs.
Professor Philpott is a developmental biologist. Her laboratory in the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute uses multiple experimental systems, and in particular Xenopus frog eggs and embryos, to understand fundamental mechanisms controlling cell fate and differentiation during embryogenesis, and how these are subverted to drive the aberrant behaviour of cancer cells.
Professor Sir John Aston - Research
Professor Aston is Harding Professor of Statistics in Public Life in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics. He takes over the role from Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith, and will begin as a Pro-Vice-Chancellor on 1 September 2024.
As Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Professor Aston will provide senior academic leadership on the University’s research activities, and be responsible for sustaining and enhancing a supportive research culture which allows Cambridge to continue to flourish as an outstanding research intensive institution with worldwide influence.
He will also develop large-scale, cross-School initiatives to tackle global challenges and increase the positive impact of Cambridge’s research on society.
Professor Aston will build on the foundations laid by Professor Ferguson Smith, who has been appointed Executive Chair of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
An applied statistician, Professor Aston leads research into the use of quantitative evidence in public policy making, works with those in public life to ensure the best methods are used, and aims to improve the use of statistics and other quantitative evidence in public policy debates. He has held a number of government and public sector roles and was recently elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.