Professor Janet Beer

Professor Janet Beer, Vice Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University, took up post in 2007. She is a graduate of Reading and Warwick Universities and also held a fellowship at Yale University. She worked for the Inner London Education Authority between 1983 and 1989 and has fulfilled academic and leadership roles at Warwick, Roehampton and Manchester Metropolitan.

Professor Beer has an established record of research in late nineteenth and early twentieth century American literature and culture and contemporary Canadian women’s writing. She has published widely in these fields and has recently completed a study of the late writing of Edith Wharton.

Professor Beer has a significant national profile and is the current chair of Higher Education Public Information Steering Group (HEFCE) and co-chair of the Equality Challenge Unit. She sits on the Advisory Board of the Higher Education Policy Institute, is a Board member of UUK, a member of the Financial Sustainability Strategy Group (HEFCE), a member of the Advisory Group: Matched funding scheme for voluntary giving (HEFCE), a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of American Studies and, in August 2009, became the Chair of the University Alliance. In January 2011 she was elected as a visiting fellow to Nuffield College Oxford.