Our recently appointed professors from across our six departments will present the story of their route to become a professor, and the achievements that have brought them to this point.
Between them, they will provide insight into the many different ways academics can demonstrate their contributions to academic life across the spectrum of research, teaching, management and leadership activity.
Please note: Some details may change. Please check this page regularly for updates.
November 2026
Professor Emma Fisher
'When it hurts: Understanding pain in children'
- Date: Tuesday 26 November 2026
- Time: 4.30pm - 5.30pm
- Location: The Chancellors' Building, Room 1.12
When a child hurts themselves, most of the time they will heal and the pain will be short-lived and unremarkable. However, for a significant number of children, the pain lasts long after the healing should have occurred. Childhood is a period of rapid growth and development, but chronic pain has the ability to stop children in their tracks.
In this lecture, Professor Fisher will explore what shapes pain in children and adolescents drawing on 15 years of research. She will examine why some children recover whilst others don't, the critical role of families when children have pain, and the evidence to make pain better.
Emma Fisher is a Professor of Paediatric Pain & Evidence-based Medicine at the University of Bath. Her primary research interests focus on the risk factors of developing chronic pain after an acute musculoskeletal injury in children and adolescents, funded by Versus Arthritis. In addition, Dr Fisher is interested in blast trauma in children, evidence-based medicine, quality, and trustworthiness of pain science. Her other research interests include mechanisms in pain transitions, menstrual pain, and virtual reality.
Past lectures
Professor Kate Woodthorpe
'We all know how this ends: how death can help us make the most of life'
In her inaugural lecture, Professor Kate Woodthorpe draws on this work and her own experiences to show how facing our shared mortality can help us be present and live life more fully.
Watch Professor Woodthorpe's inaugural lecture.
Professor Maria Loades
Beyond the Clinic: Rethinking Early Mental Health Support for Young People. Single-Session Interventions and the Pursuit of Population-Level Impact
Drawing on her research with young people, Professor Maria Loades will consider how we can make support more accessible, safe and effective, and what it would take for these approaches to have a meaningful impact at population level.
Watch Professor Loades' inaugural lecture.
Professor John Troyer
Death! Exciting and New: Reflections on Post-mortem Politics
Professor John Troyer explores how death, dying, the dead body, grief & bereavement and the technological mediation of mortality are persistent human experiences and yet somehow always new. In this way, the politics connected to these collective (and radically distinct) human experiences eternally return to the shock of the old being new again. Again. And again.