Professor Karen McCloskey has been appointed to the new position of Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, reporting to the Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor.

Karen is currently Director of Queen's Gender Initiative and Academic Lead for Athena Swan and Professor of Physiology in the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences.

In January 2024, Queen’s became the first university on the island of Ireland and only the second in the UK to achieve an institutional Gold Award for its work improving gender equality. Karen's leadership as Director of Queen’s Gender Initiative played an integral role in Queen’s achievement of this recognition, conferred in January 2024 by Advance HE, and in driving forward the University’s equality, diversity and inclusion agenda more generally.

Karen will take up post effective from 1 August 2024.