Honour for university’s deputy vice-chancellor
THE University of Reading’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor has been appointed an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
Prof Parveen Yaqoob, who also serves as joint Pro-ViceChancellor for Research and Innovation, received the honour for services to higher education.
“I am overwhelmed to be recognised for a job that means so much to me,” she said.
“I grew up in a culture that actively discouraged education for girls, so I was really lucky to get the chance to go to university.”
“Higher education has given me the opportunities that I could never have imagined, and so to pay that back in some small way means the world to me.”
Prof Yaqoob is a champion of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) issues across the university.
She is the first female Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Reading and currently chairs the national Athena Swan Governance Committee, which manages transformation of the charter for gender equality.
Prof Yaqoob directed the university’s response to Covid-19, overseeing student and staff safety, help by the NHS.
The university’s ViceChancellor, Prof Robert Van de Noort was full of praise for his colleague, saying: “I would like to offer Parveen my heartfelt congratulations on the news of her appointment to OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.”
“I could not be more pleased to hear that she has been honoured.”
“We are extremely lucky to have such a committed academic and leader who applies her sound judgement and hard work to everything she does.”
Prof Yaqoob has been at the University of Reading for 24 years, joining as a lecturer in human nutrition in 1998.
She became Pro-ViceChancellor in 2018, taking on the additional role of Deputy ViceChancellor in 2020.