Professor Karen O'Brien

Since joining, Professor O’Brien has led Durham University through a significant period of strategy renewal, with a focus on key areas of research growth (particularly in the sciences), access and inclusion, closer engagement with the city and region, equality and inclusion, and UN Sustainable Development Goals.  

She was previously Head of Humanities at the University of Oxford, Vice-Principal for Education at King’s College London, and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education) at the University of Birmingham. She gained her D.Phil from Oxford University, and spent her earlier academic career in Cambridge, Cardiff and Warwick Universities. Her research focuses on the literature and intellectual history of the European Enlightenment.