Board of Visitors

pitt rivers museum by john cairns 25 9 18 31

Board of Visitors

Professor Andrew Briggs

Professor Andrew Briggs is the inaugural holder of the Chair in Nanomaterials at the University of Oxford. His research interests focus on nanomaterials for quantum technologies and their incorporation into practical devices. He is a Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford, Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society, Fellow of the Institute of Physics, Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion, and Member of Academia Europaea. He has over 600 publications, with more than 27,000 citations.

Professor Patricia Daley

Patricia Daley is Professor of the Human Geography of Africa at the School of Geography and the Environment at Oxford University. She is also the Helen Morag Fellow in Geography at Jesus College, Oxford, where she served as Vice-Principal from 2018 to 2021. She was the University Assessor (2015-2016) and co-founded the Oxford University Black and Minority Ethnic staff network in 2013. She was elected to the University Council in 2021 and sits on the Education Committee and General Purposes Committee. She is also a member of the University's Staff Employment Review Panels.

Dr Linda Flores

Linda Flores is Associate Professor in Modern Japanese Literature in the Faculty of Oriental Studies and the Fellow in Japanese Studies at Pembroke College. In the faculty, she has recently served as Director of Undergraduate Studies and has also played an active role in supporting equality, diversity, and outreach. At Pembroke, she has served as Deputy Dean, Welfare Fellow, and Equality and Diversity Fellow. Her areas of expertise include Japanese women writers, gender theory, trauma fiction, and contemporary Japanese literature.

Professor Trish Greenhalgh

Professor Trisha Greenhalgh OBE is a medical doctor and Professor of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford. She undertakes research at the interface between social sciences and medicine, with a particular focus on the potential of technologies to transform care (for better or worse).

Prof Helena Hamerow

Helena is Professor of Early Medieval Archaeology in the School of Archaeology and the History Faculty. Her research focuses on rural communities in early medieval NW Europe. She is PI of an ERC-funded project, ‘Feeding Anglo-Saxon England. The Bioarchaeology of an Agricultural Revolution’ (http://feedsax.arch.ox.ac.uk). Helena was an elected member of the University of Oxford's Council from 2016-20 and is a Commissioner of Historic England.

Ms Melanie Keen

Melanie Keen is Director of Wellcome Collection, a free museum and library in London which aims to challenge how we all think and feel about health. Prior to joining in October 2019, she was Director and Chief Curator at Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts), where she was instrumental in the revitalisation of Iniva’s mission and vision by making the library collection its creative hub.

Ms Iliane Ogilvie Thompson

Chair of the Pitt Rivers Museum Development Advisory Board.

Mr Richard Ovenden OBE

Richard Ovenden has been Bodley’s Librarian since 2014, the senior executive position of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. In February 2022 he was also appointed Head of Gardens, Libraries and Museums at the University. He sits on the Board of the Consortium of European Research Libraries, and the Council on Library and Information Resources and is currently President of the Digital Preservation Coalition. He was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2019 and holds a Professorial Fellowship at Balliol College.

Prof David Pratten

David Pratten is Head of the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford. David is a social anthropologist whose research is based on a long-term engagement with Annang villagers in south-eastern Nigeria and focuses on themes of history, violence and the state. David has also worked closely with Pitt Rivers Museum colleagues on its displays of West African masks and in 2018 collected a mask for the collection in Nigeria.

Prof Paul Smith

Paul Smith is Director of Oxford University Museum of Natural History and Professor of Natural History. He is a geologist by training and has spent most of his career working in university museums at the universities of Cambridge, Copenhagen, Birmingham and Oxford. Paul has served as Co-Chair of University Museums Group UK and has been a President of both The Micropalaeontological Society and the Palaeontological Association.

Prof Nick Thomas

Nicholas Thomas has been Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge since 2006. His books include many co-authored with Pacific Islander scholars and artists, Islanders: the Pacific in the age of empire (2010), which was awarded the Wolfson History Prize, and The Return of Curiosity: what museums are good for in the twenty-first century (2016).

Ms Evie O'Brien, Executive Director, Atlantic Institute

Evie O’Brien is the Executive Director of the Atlantic Institute. Based at Rhodes House in Oxford, the Institute was established in 2016 by Atlantic Philanthropies to build the life-long global community of Atlantic Fellows from the seven Atlantic Programs across the world.

Evie is indigenous Māori from New Zealand and has an extensive executive leadership background in higher education institutions in New Zealand, spanning more than 25 years. She holds a B.Ed (Adult Education) from Massey University and an MBA from the University of Waikato.

Prof. dr Laura Van Broekhoven

Laura is the Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum and Professor of Museum Studies, Ethics and Material Culture at the University of Oxford. Laura holds a Professorial Fellowship at Linacre College, and is associated with the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at Oxford. Previously she led the curatorial department of the National Museum of World Cultures (Amsterdam, Leiden and Berg en Dal) and was a lecturer in archaeology, museum studies and indigenous heritage at the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University.

Prof. Jane Shaw (Chair)

Jane Shaw, FRHistS, is Principal of Harris Manchester College, Professor of the History of Religion & a Pro-Vice-Chancellor. Besides serving as Chair of the Board of Visitors of the Pitt Rivers Museum, she is also Chair of the Management Board of the Rothermere American Institute, and Co-Director of the Oxford Next Horizons Programme, a collaboration between Harris Manchester College and the Rhodes Trust. Before taking up her current posts at Oxford in 2018, Professor Shaw taught at Stanford University. Her research is on religion in the modern world.

Prof. Clare Harris

Prof Clare Harris FBA is Curator for Asia Collections and Professor of Visual Anthropology at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford and a Fellow of Magdalen College. Prof Harris’s pioneering work on Tibetan art, visual culture, material culture, photography and museums has created a new field of study for which she has received book prizes, research awards and invitations to lecture around the world. Much of her research feeds into curatorial activities at the Museum, in UK and Asian art galleries & projects with contemporary artists.

Dr Nick Merriman

Dr Nick Merriman has been Chief Executive of the Horniman Museum and Gardens in London since May 2018 and was appointed as Chief Executive of English Heritage in October 2023. Previously he was Director of the Manchester Museum at the University of Manchester and prior to that Reader in Museum and Heritage Studies at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He is Honorary Professor of Museum Studies at UCL and University of Manchester and chaired the 2023 review of funding for Higher Education Museums, Galleries and Collections for UKRI.

Dave Kirk is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Nuffield College. At Nuffield, he directs the Centre for Social Investigation, a research centre dedicated to addressing contemporary social issues of public interest and engaging with policymakers and the public. He is also the director of a graduate access initiative at the college, the Nuffield Undergraduate Scholars Institute, and he previously served as Nuffield's Equality and Diversity Fellow. Dave received his PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago.

Want to find out more about the Museum?

Find out more