Professor Robert Fern

Reporting to the Vice-Chancellor, Bob provides strategic leadership across the 6 schools of the faculty and is responsible for ensuring the faculty delivers excellence across all aspects of education and the student experience, research and innovation. His role includes:

• Executive leadership of the Peninsula Medical School, the Peninsula Dental School and the Schools of Psychology, Nursing and Midwifery, Health Professions and Biomedical Sciences within the Faculty of Health
• Membership of key institutional bodies, including Senate; Academic Development and Partnership Committee; IT and Digital Committee; University Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Committee; UEG Risk Review Group
• Chair PMS (facilities)
• Member of the Board of The Vaccine Group and Peninsula Dental Social Enterprise
• Joint Exec, UP/UHP NHS trust
• Plymouth Council Health and Wellbeing board
• Oversight of JCRO
• Plymouth Dental Liaison
• Involvement in and leadership of specific projects of strategic importance to the University.

A Neurobiologist, Bob joined the University in 2013, having previously held roles at UCL, Yale, and the Universities of Washington and Leicester.

Supervised Research Degrees

PhD/MRes students:

• 1) 2004-2008 James Alix PhD*. NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow, University of Sheffield.
• 2) 2007-2010 Antonio Domingues PhD*. Currently post-doc at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden.
• 3) 2004-2008/2010 Phillip Vermehren PhD*. Medical doctor in the Neurology department at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield.
• 4) 2011-2012 Narasimha Murthy MRes*. Returned to India to pursue career.
• 5) 2011-2012 Rebecca Arkell. MRes*. Technician at Phillips Research.
• 6) 2009-2013 Badrah Alghamdi. PhD*. Associate Professor, Saudi Arabia
• 7) 2009-2013 Huria Elmesmari. PhD*. Currently faculty in Libya.
• 8) 2010-2014 Mellisa Trotman. PhD*. Post-Doc, University of Leicester.
• 9) 2012-2016 Hiwa Latif. PhD (University of Leicester).
• 10) 2014-2018 Sean Doyle. PhD*. Post-Doc, Ireland.
• 11) 2015-2019 Sarah Ellwood*. PhD student, (University of Plymouth).
• 12) 2016-2020 Chris Bulman* PhD student, (University of Plymouth).
• 13) 2018-present Verity Mitchener*. PhD student, (University of Plymouth).
• 14) 2019-present Gideon Stone*. ResM student, (University of Plymouth).
• 15) 2019-present Dan Morgan*. PhD student, (University of Plymouth).
• 16) 2019-present TBA*. PhD student, (University of Plymouth).

 * Principle supervisor.

2015-present: Delivery: BHCS3001 (student projects). FoH, University of Plymouth.

2015-present: Delivery: BHC3007: (third year Biomedical sciences). FoH, University of Plymouth.

2016-present: Delivery: BHCS2001: (second year Biomedical sciences). FoH, University of Plymouth.