Professor Sharon Peacock CBE FMedSci 

As the eighth Master of Churchill College I oversee its democratic self-governance and facilitate discussions about how we achieve our educational mission and sustain a community of students, fellows, staff and alumni within an open, welcoming and supportive place. I am deeply committed to supporting our students to achieve their academic best – balanced with wider interests and activities that promote health and well-being. I have a strong focus on maximising the physical environment in which we live and work, the sustainability of the college, and our financial resilience – and how we continue to strengthen these for the benefit of future generations.

After having trained in general internal medicine and clinical microbiology, I spent much of my post-graduate career in teaching and research. My scientific expertise includes pathogen genomics, antimicrobial resistance, and several tropical diseases – the latter arising whilst head of bacterial diseases research at the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok (2003-2009). I was the founding Director of the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK), formed in April 2020 to provide SARS-CoV-2 genomes towards the UK pandemic response. Prior to this, I dedicated more than a decade to the translation of pathogen sequencing into clinical and public health microbiology to better detect and manage outbreaks, as well as using sequencing to examine the transmission of antibiotic-resistant bacteria between humans, livestock, and the environment. I retain my position as Professor of Microbiology and Public Health in the Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge.

My contributions to microbiology have been recognised by several fellowships and awards. I am a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, and an elected Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). I was awarded the Unilever Colworth Prize in 2018 and the Marjorie Stephenson Prize in 2023 (both from the Microbiology Society) for outstanding contributions to the discipline of microbiology. I was awarded a CBE for services to medical microbiology in 2015 and received the Medical Research Council Millennium Medal in 2021 for pioneering work in pathogen sequencing, leadership of COG-UK and outstanding to advancing equality, diversity and inclusion in research.

I grew up in the south of England and attended a state comprehensive school in Sussex. After leaving school at 16, I trained as a dental nurse followed by adult general nursing, after which I was admitted to Southampton University to study medicine as a mature student. I am passionate about attracting academically able people who could thrive in our modern, friendly College regardless of their school or background, and who will go on to contribute to their community and to wider society through learned contributions, discovery and innovation, and the application of expertise to tackle global challenges.

I am also on the University of Cambridge’s Council, the principal executive and policy-making body of the University, to which I bring a range of interests, including strategy, governance, widening access to the University of Cambridge, mental health, and environmental sustainability.