Professoriate & Honorary Titles

Professor Rebecca Finkel was a Professor of Critical Event Studies in the Media, Communication and Performing Arts Division at ҹɫֱ²¥. She was also the Director of the Research Centre for Culture in Society (formerly Communication, Cultural and Media Studies).

She is committed to equality, diversity, and inclusion in education through her teaching practices and research focus, which frames critical event studies within conceptualisations of social justice, gender in/equality, and cultural identity.

Honorary Lecturer

Honorary Lecturer

Honorary Lecturer

Honorary Lecturer

Honorary Lecturer

Currently, John works as an ACCS doctor specialising in Emergency Medicine within the South East Deanery of Scotland. He rotates through critical care, anaesthetics, and acute medicine as he progresses towards becoming a consultant in Emergency Medicine. Beyond his NHS responsibilities, he serves as a trackside emergency doctor at race circuits. He also lectures at various universities throughout the UK. He currently works as an intensive care doctor in the East of Scotland.

Honorary Lecturer

Oonagh O’Brien is an anthropologist and activist with expertise in gender and sexual and reproductive health. She was a lecturer at the Institute for Global Health and Development and specialist areas of work are HIV, FGM and participatory methodologies.

Honorary Research Fellow

Dr. Tim Shand is an Honorary Research Fellow at IGHD, Director of ShandClarke Consulting, and global expert on men's sexual and reproductive health.

Professor Marie Donaghy was formerly a Professor of Physiotherapy, and the Dean of the School of Health Sciences, at ҹɫֱ²¥.

Her main research areas included the impact of exercise in different clinical populations in regard to depression, self-esteem, lifestyle behaviour. This has included looking at exercise as an adjunct in the treatment of problem drinking, back pain, osteoporosis, and cardiopulmonary disease.

Professor Bill Hardcastle is Emeritus Professor of Speech Sciences in the Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences at ҹɫֱ²¥. From 1993 to 2002, he was firstly Head of the Department of Speech and Language Sciences at ҹɫֱ²¥, then Dean of Health Sciences and Dean of Research.

He has published a number of books and over 120 articles in areas such as the mechanisms of speech production, instrumental clinical phonetics and sensorimotor control in both normal and pathological speech. For his research on electropalatography, a technique to improve diagnosis and treatment of speech disorders, he received the 2006 Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran award from the Foundation for Science and Technology.

Before entering academic life, Professor Richard Kerley worked in advertising, hospitality and in prison education. He also worked for four different councils, in adult education and then latterly in staff and management development.

Richard is the author of various books, research papers, academic journals and numerous articles in the quality print media. He has carried out research projects supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Scottish Consumer Council, Alcohol Scotland, The Accounts Commission Scotland, Tayside, Edinburgh and Fife Councils, the Association of MBAs and the Scottish Government.

Professor Anthony Cohen is one of Scotland’s senior social anthropologists. He became Principal of ҹɫֱ²¥ College, Edinburgh in 2003.

He was instrumental in revitalising the anthropological study of Britain; and, following his doctoral research in Newfoundland, has focused all his own empirical research on Scotland. His theoretical areas of research and writing have been, initially, in issues of local-level politics; later, and more substantially, in identity; symbolism; and selfhood.

Professor Russell Rimmer’s research in dynamical systems resolved questions arising from the work of Poincare near the beginning of the 20th century. His research in income distribution was described by a reviewer as the most important contribution since David Ricardo.

Before becoming an Emeritus Professor, Maggie Nicol was a professor in Occupational Therapy and Art Therapies and formerly head of the subject area at ҹɫֱ²¥. She gained her professional qualification as an occupational therapist in 1970 then an MPhil in 1986 and PhD in 1996. She developed her clinical skills as a OT in the area of mental health from 1970-79 before moving into education.

Professor Roni Bamber

Professor Andy Frew is Professor Emeritus in Information and Communication Technology & Tourism at ҹɫֱ²¥. He is active in the fields of hospitality and tourism, specialising in the research, application and management implications of information technologies and systems.

He has had widespread involvement in numerous think tanks and development forums, including industry benchmarking in collaboration with the UNWTO and technology initiatives with Microsoft Corporation. Andy is past-president of both the International Federation of IT & Travel and Tourism (IFITT) and the Hospitality Information Technology Association (HITA).

Professor Claire Seaman was a Professor in Enterprise and Family Business in the Queen Margaret Business School. She has published over 30 journal articles on family businesses in the UK, New Zealand and Latin America and is a regular contributor to family business conferences worldwide.

Claire maintains close links with the business community and business organisations such as the Scottish Family Business Association, Family Business United and local economic development agencies.

Professor Petra Wend was Principal and Vice-Chancellor of ҹɫֱ²¥ between 2009 and July 2019. She was awarded a CBE in the 2021 Queen's New Year Honours list.

With a research background in institutional strategies underpinning successful leadership, improvements in student experience and university performance indicators, Professor Wend has a significant profile of academic publications and invited lectures.

Professor Sophie Witter

Professor Sophie Witter was a Professor of International Health Financing and Health Systems in the Institute for Global Health and Development Division at ҹɫֱ²¥.

Sophie is a health economist specialising in health financing policy and health systems research in low and middle-income countries. She has 35 years' experience in these areas, working first in development agencies and then in the universities of York, Aberdeen and ҹɫֱ²¥.

Professor Jim Scobbie

Professor James M Scobbie, FRSE was the Director of the Clinical Audiology, Speech and Language Research Centre (CASL) at ҹɫֱ²¥.

His research areas included child speech acquisition, psycholinguistics, bidialectalism and bilingualism, laboratory phonology, and social variation. His research sought to address fine-grained systematic differences in accents, articulatory phonetics, acquisition, and connected speech.

He also contributed to two of ҹɫֱ²¥â€™s strategic areas of research strength, namely the development and refinement of instrumental techniques for the study of speech, and their use for the assessment and remediation of speech disorders.