Rate My Professor Evelyn Welch

Professor Evelyn Welch is Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Bristol, a position she has held since September 2022. She graduated from Harvard University with a BA in Renaissance History and Literature and received her PhD from the Warburg Institute at the University of London. Prior to her appointment at Bristol, she served as Senior Vice-President for Service, People & Planning at King’s College London, having previously been Vice-President (Arts and Sciences) and Provost (Arts and Sciences) there since 2013. She has held teaching positions at the University of Essex, Birkbeck College and the Warburg Institute, and senior leadership roles at the University of Sussex as Pro Vice-Chancellor for Teaching and Learning and at Queen Mary, University of London as Dean of Arts and Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and International.

As Professor of Renaissance Studies, Welch specialises in the art of the Italian Renaissance and material culture. She has led major research programmes including ‘The Material Renaissance’ and ‘Beyond Text: Performances, Sounds, Images’. She was a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator from 2017 to 2022 and published the open-access monograph ‘Renaissance Skin’ with Manchester University Press. Her other publications include ‘Fashioning the Early Modern: Creativity and Innovation in Europe, 1500-1800’ (Oxford University Press, 2017) and ‘Shopping in the Renaissance’ (Yale University Press, 2005), which won the Wolfson Prize for History. Welch was awarded an MBE for services to higher education and the creative economy. She has served as a Trustee of the Victoria & Albert Museum, Chair of Trustees of the Dulwich Picture Gallery and is currently a Deputy Lieutenant of the County and City of Bristol. In 2026 she was announced as the next Chair of the Russell Group.

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