Professor Helen Laville is the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University and took up her role on 1 August 2025.
Helen was Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Kingston University before joining Oxford Brookes. She has an impressive track record in enhancing the research agenda, improving student outcomes, embedding employability into the curriculum, and leading strategic change and development.
In her previous role, Helen was the senior leader responsible for Education, Knowledge Exchange and Research, and led the institutional submission to the 2023 Teaching Excellence Framework, achieving the only institutional move from Bronze to Gold. She was the academic lead for strategy development, which included work to grow and diversify the academic portfolio.
Helen was the executive sponsor for Kingston University’s LGBTQ+ staff network, a Governor on the Board of the South Thames College Group, and worked with the Big South London Partnership and the Royal Borough of Kingston on expanding the civic work of the university with regional partners and the local community.
Before joining Kingston University, Professor Laville was Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education) at Manchester Metropolitan University from 2016 until 2021, after a 20-year career at the University of Birmingham culminating as the Head of School of English, Drama and American and Canadian Studies. She graduated with first-class honours from the University of Birmingham with a BA in Medieval and Modern History and has a PhD in American history from the University of Nottingham.
Helen is a Principal Fellow of Advance HE, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Trustee of Hospice UK.
Her predecessor was Professor Alistair Fitt, who retired in June 2025.
