Female academics celebrated with permanent display on campus

Female academics celebrated with permanent display on campus. A series of specially commissioned portraits that reveal the personal motivations of female academics at Sussex has now been permanently installed on the first floor of the Library. The academics who were invited to take part represent a range of career stages; some are leading research in the most competitive areas, while others are at the beginning of their academic careers. The Twelve Women in Academia series was unveiled on Wednesday (16 November) by Professor Clare Mackie, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning). Unveiling the portraits, Professor Mackie said: "It's really lovely to put some portraits of female academics in our Library, to bring inspiration to students across the University - not just female students, but also male students who would like to see more of a female presence." "I would like to thank the group of academics who posed for the portraits and engaged quite passionately in the process." The women are all pictured with an object that either represents an aspect of their work or has had some personal significance in their career. Professor Vinita Damodaran , for example, holds in her image palm-leaf manuscripts from her home region in Southern India that contain valuable knowledge about plants and plant medicine. Professor Damodaran, a Senior Lecturer in South Asian History, is using indigenous and colonial archives such as these to better understand how previous generations have lived in hostile environments that could become more common as the effects of climate change become more apparent.