Petra Wend
British academic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Professor Petra Wend CBE, FRSA, FRSE was Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Edinburgh's Queen Margaret University from 2009 until her retirement in 2019.[1]
Academic life
Petra Wend studied Italian and French Language and Education at the University of Münster in Germany. In 1990 she completed a PhD in Italian Language and Literature at University of Leeds. The title of her thesis was "The Female Voice: Lyrical Expression in the Writings of five Italian Renaissance Poets".[2]
Petra Wend joined Queen Margaret University in 2009 as Principal and Vice-Chancellor and retired in 2019.
Prior to joining Queen Margaret University she was Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) and Deputy Chief Executive at Oxford Brookes University.
During her time at Queen Margaret, Petra served as Vice-Convener of Universities Scotland in 2012–2014 and 2014–2016.[2] In 2015 she was appointed by the Scottish Government as a member of the Commission for Widening Access chaired by Dame Ruth Silver. Petra was then appointed by Universities Scotland in 2017 to lead the work stream on Bridging Programmes.[3]
In 2020 Professor Wend was appointed as an external expert to the programme board for the Scottish Funding Council’s review of Further Education and Higher Education.[4] In 2020, she was elected Chair of the University Council of the University of Hamburg.