Shearer West

Shearer West is Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield. She was formerly Head of Humanities Division at the University of Oxford, Director of Research at the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Professor of Art History and Head of the School of Historical Studies at the University of Birmingham. She has published nine authored and edited books on eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century European art, and many peer-reviewed essays and articles, including prize-winning publications. Her specialist area is the history of portraiture.

She has held two visiting Fellowships at Yale University, served on the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise sub-panel for History of Art, Architecture and Design, and has acted as a teaching assessor for the QAA, in addition to numerous external consultancies. She went to the AHRC after four years as Head of the School of Historical Studies, then Acting Head of the College of Arts and Law, at the University of Birmingham.