Harvard Alumna May Become First Woman to Chair Oxford

Professor Louise Richardson, an Irish-born academic in the field of terrorism and security issues who used to study and work at Harvard University has been nominated to be the next vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, becoming the first woman to take the post.

LONDON (Sputnik) – Oxford has had 271 vice-chancellors in its 800-year history, all of them were male.

Oxford

© Flickr / Verity Cridland

"I am very much looking forward to working with talented, experienced, and dedicated colleagues to advance Oxford’s pre-eminent global position in research, scholarship, and teaching," Richardson said in a statement commenting on her nomination, as quoted by The Irish Times on Thursday.

Richardson is head of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. She has BA in History from Trinity College, Dublin, an MA in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and an MA and PhD in Government from Harvard University. She will start her job as Oxford’s vice-chancellor, a post equivalent to chief executive, in January, 2016.

The university, located in Oxford, England, is one of the top-ranked higher educational institutions in the world.

It placed 3rd in the world and 1st in the United Kingdom in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2014/15.