University Officers

Professor Freya Johnston began as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education) on 1 September 2025. She took her undergraduate and doctoral degrees in English at Trinity College, Cambridge; as an undergraduate, she also studied German literature at the Free University in Berlin. She was appointed Enid Welsford Junior Research Fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1999 and then served as Fellow and Director of Studies at Christ’s College, Cambridge before moving to the University of Warwick in 2004. Three years later she came to Oxford, where she is Professor of English and Hazel Eardley-Wilmot Tutorial Fellow at St Anne’s College. Professor Johnston has served as Associate Head (Education) of the Humanities Division (2023-5), Dean of St Anne’s College (2023-5), Junior Proctor (2020-21), Director of Graduate Studies in English (2014-17), and Deputy Chair of Faculty Board (2013-14). Her research centres on literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, especially the works of Samuel Johnson and Jane Austen. She is co-editor, with Seamus Perry and Christopher Ricks, of the quarterly journal Essays in Criticism (Oxford University Press).

As Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education), Professor Johnston is responsible for the University’s strategies and policies for teaching, learning, admissions and student support.

Professor Anne Trefethen is Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Digital) and a Fellow of St Cross College.

She became Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Academic Services and University Collections in January 2015, and from 1 September 2018 became Pro-Vice-Chancellor for People and GLAM, as chair of the Personnel Committee and with responsibility for overseeing the University’s gardens, libraries and museums.

Professor Trefethen was appointed the University’s first Chief Information Officer in March 2012, prior to which she served as Director of the Oxford e-Research Centre. Before coming to Oxford in 2005, she was a Director of the UK e-Science Core Programme and prior to that worked at NAG (Numerical Algorithms Group) in both management and technical roles. She has spent ten years in the US at Thinking Machines Corp and at the Theory Centre, Cornell University, in leadership roles.