Professor Rebecca Lingwood 

Professor of Fluid Dynamics and formerly Provost of Brunel University London.

FREng, PFHEA

Rebecca has over 18 years of experience in Higher Education senior leadership with a deep commitment to widening opportunities and social mobility. From her own background, she knows how transformational higher education and an inclusive research culture can be.

Until October 2022, she was Provost of Brunel University London and prior to that she was Vice-Principal (Student Experience, Teaching & Learning) at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). Earlier in her career she led continuing education at the University of Cambridge and prior to that she led continuing professional development at the University of Oxford; widening the ambit of these universities to those who would not otherwise have had the opportunity to study there.

At QMUL and Brunel, where the student populations were largely from under-represented groups and less advantaged backgrounds, Rebecca led major university-wide student experience and educational change programmes to improve outcomes during and beyond university for students and graduates. She has taken specific EDI roles in her work ranging, for example, from Athena SWAN leadership to being a WISE supporter and sponsorship of Women in Brunel Engineering and Computing, to personal sponsorship of individuals and multiple mentoring roles. She was the senior disabilities champion at Brunel, sponsored the university’s anti-racism work and its student trans & non-binary policy. She also established a new senior role of Dean of Culture & Inclusion at Brunel.

Rebecca is an internationally recognized research leader and professor in fluid dynamics and has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng). She takes an active role for the RAEng, sitting on multiple committees and acts in a similar capacity for the Royal Society and Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council. She has held a number of external board, trustee and review roles. Her research activities are based at the Royal Institute of Technology KTH (Stockholm, Sweden), where she is also an Affiliated Professor.