Professor Rebecca Lingwood joined Lancaster University as Deputy Vice-Chancellor in July 2024 and is now the current interim Vice Chancellor.
Before joining Lancaster University as Deputy Vice-Chancellor she was Provost of Brunel University London, and before that she was Vice-Principal of Student Experience, Teaching and Learning at QMUL.
She completed her PhD at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, before going on to be appointed to a Research Fellowship at Pembroke College, Cambridge, followed by a Dorothy Hodgkin Royal Society Research Fellowship.
She moved to France in 1999 working at École Polytechnique, before returning to the UK – first to work in industry and then for the University of Oxford in a variety of roles, ultimately as Director of Continuing Professional Development. In 2009, she returned to Cambridge as Director of the Cambridge University Institute of Continuing Education and Warden of Madingley Hall. During this time, she was elected as a member of the University of Cambridge Council. Since 2007, her research activities have been based at the Royal Institute of Technology KTH in Stockholm, Sweden, where she is also an Affiliated Professor.
In 2019, Professor Lingwood was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng). She is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS), and is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA).
She has been a STEM champion throughout her career and has a deep commitment to widening opportunities and social mobility. She is a Trustee for the Daphne Jackson Trust. She is also a Visiting Professor at the New Model Institute for Technology & Engineering (NMITE).
Professor Lingwood has conducted numerous strategic reviews for universities in the UK, Norway and Sweden and has experience working with industry and business in research and education, nationally and internationally. Across her various roles prior to joining Lancaster University, she has co-led the establishment of two Institutes of Technology, co-founded a University Technical College, and introduced degree apprenticeship programmes and portfolios of fully online degree programmes.