Phenomenal Women: Portraits of UK Black Female Professors, a celebration of Black British academics comes to the public in a free outdoor exhibition at London’s Southbank Centre.
The exhibition is centred around academic research which delved into the career experiences of Black female professors at UK universities. The research was carried out by Dr Nicola Rollock, an academic and public speaker who readers may recognise as one if the experts from the recent Channel 4 documentary The School That Tried to End Racism.
In her research, Dr Nicola Rollock, who also commissioned and curated the exhibition, wanted to highlight how, despite increases in overall levels of academic staff, fewer than 1% of professors in the UK are Black.
Of the 19,285* professors in UK universities in total according to a 2019 report by AdvanceHE, 12,795 are White males, 4,560 are White women. There are only 90 Black men and 35 Black women. Black women represent the smallest group when both race and gender are considered together. This means that Black women are three times less likely to be professors than their white female counterparts and half as likely as Black men.
Dr Rollock’s 2019 research highlighted the barriers faced by Black women as they worked to navigate their way through higher education and the strategies they used to help them reach professorship.
The Phenomenal Women: Portraits of UK Black Female Professors exhibition features portraits, taken by photographer Bill Knight, along with the biographies of 45 professors across a broad range of subjects including law, medicine, creative writing and sociology.
Amongst the 45 remarkable women being celebrated in the exhibition are award-winning author Bernadine Evaristo, poet and playwright Joan Anim-Addo and the first woman ever to be appointed head of a UK dental school, Cynthia Pine.
The exhibition, which runs from 10 October – 8 November 2020, is timed to coincide with Black History Month, and is presented along the Southbank Centre’s very popular public riverside promenade The Queen’s Walk.
Dr Rollock said: “I am thrilled to be working with the Southbank Centre on this exhibition. As one of London’s leading arts’ venues, it is a fitting space in which to help draw attention to just how few Black female professors there are in the UK and to highlight their achievements.”
The Black female professors featured in the exhibition are:
| Gloria Agyemang | Professor of Accounting |
| Joan Anim-Addo | Professor of Caribbean Literature and Culture |
| Bugewa Apampa | Professor of Pharmacy Education |
| Uduak Archibong | Professor of Diversity |
| Diamond Ashiagbor | Professor of Law |
| Florence Ayisi | Professor of International Documentary Film |
| Fareda Banda | Professor of Law |
| Claudia Bernard | Professor of Social Work |
| Sonia Boyce | Professor of Black Art & Design |
| Enitan Carrol | Professor of Paediatric Infection |
| Donna Chambers | Professor of Tourism |
| Nelarine Cornelius | Professor of Organisation Studies |
| Patricia Daley | Professor of the Human Geography of Africa |
| Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent | Chief Midwifery Officer, NHS England and Visiting Professor of Midwifery |
| Dawn Edge | Professor of Mental Health and Inclusivity |
| Akwugo Emejulu | Professor of Sociology |
| Engobo Emeseh | Professor of Law |
| Bernardine Evaristo | Professor of Creative Writing |
| Lynette Goddard | Professor of Black Theatre and Performance |
| Stephani Hatch | Professor of Sociology and Epidemiology |
| Gina Higginbottom | Emeritus Professor Ethnicity & Health |
| Marilyn Holness | Professor of Education Engagement and Practice |
| Adele Jones | Professor of Social Work |
| Tessa McWatt | Professor of Creative Writing |
| Heidi Mirza | Emeritus Professor of Equalities Studies |
| Dorothy Monekosso | Professor of Computer Science |
| Francisca Mutapi | Professor in Global Health Infection and Immunity |
| Bertha Ochieng | Professor of Integrated Health & Social Care |
| Phoebe Okowa | Professor of Public International Law |
| Funmi Olonisakin | Professor of Security, Leadership and Development |
| Olivette Otele | Professor of History of Slavery & Memory |
| Ann Phoenix | Professor of Psychosocial Research |
| Cynthia Pine | Professor of Dental Public Health |
| Tracey Reynolds | Professor of Sociology |
| Laura Serrant | Professor of Community & Public Health Nursing |
| Maria Stokes | Leads the Southampton University Active Living for Health Research Group |
| Iyiola Solanke | Professor in EU Law and Social Justice |
| Shirley Anne Tate | Professor of Sociology |
| Patricia Tuitt | Professor of Law |
| Carol Tulloch | Professor of Dress, Diaspora and Transnationalism |
| Ijeoma Uchegbu | Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience |
| Ola Uduku | Professor in Architecture |
| Toni Williams | Professor of Law |
| Marcia Wilson | Dean, Office for Institutional Equity |
| Cecile Wright | Professor of Sociology |
Phenomenal Women: Portraits of UK Black Female Professors
10 October – 8 November 2020
The Southbank Centre’s The Queen’s Walk
Free
