Professor Chris Brink served as Vice-Chancellor of Newcastle 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 in the United Kingdom for 10 years and before that as Rector and Vice-Chancellor of Stellenbosch 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 for 5 years. He retired in 2016, and returned to South Africa.
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Bringing the same vision and values to Newcastle, Professor Brink championed the vision of a world-class civic university, ensuring that the institution’s research and teaching focused on tackling some of the major challenges facing global society. He is known for crystallising the idea of a civic university into two key questions: What are we good at and what are we good for.
Prof Brink was a Board member of the Russell Group, the association of top universities in the UK, as well as the N8, the partnership of eight research-intensive universities in the North of England, which he also chaired. He has served as a Board member of Universities UK, the national Equality Challenge Unit, the national Quality Assurance Agency, and the Advisory Committee on Leadership, Governance and Management of the HE Funding Council for England, the North East Local Enterprise Partnership, and various regional Boards.
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Before going to Stellenbosch Professor Brink served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Wollongong in Australia. Before that, he was Professor and Head of the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Cape Town, and served as the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网’s Coordinator of Strategic Planning. During the 1980s, he also held appointment as a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网.
Chris Brink is a logician with a Cambridge PhD and an interdisciplinary DPhil. He holds Master’s degrees from Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 in both philosophy and mathematics, and a Bachelor’s degree in computer science. His research areas include mathematics, logic, philosophy and computer science, and he has published in all these fields. Before moving into management he held the prestigious ‘A’-rating of the National Research Foundation, which ranked him as one of South Africa’s leading scientists.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa and holds the Freedom of the City of Newcastle. He has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Civil Law.
His selfless attributes make him a real credit to our 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 and a tremendous role model for those in his profession and beyond. It is for these phenomenal achievements that Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 is immensely proud to award the Distinguished Old Rhodian award to Professor Chris Brink.