St Mary’s Appoints Prof Jamie North as Director of Research

St Mary’s University, Twickenham has today announced the appointment of Prof Jamie North as its new Director of Research.

Jamie first joined St Mary’s in 2011 and was appointed interim Deputy Head of School in 2017. He subsequently took up the position of Associate Dean for Research and Enterprise in the Faculty of Sport, Allied Health, and Performance Science in 2018.

St Mary’s Vice-Chancellor Anthony McClaran welcomed the appointment, saying, “We are pleased that this post attracted a very strong field and delighted to appoint Jamie North to the role of Director of Research. With the granting of our Research Degree Awarding Powers and excellent REF performance in 2021, research is going from strength to strength at St Mary’s. Jamie is ideally placed to take us forward on the next stage of that journey.”

Speaking of his appointment, Jamie added, “I am delighted to be taking on this new role at St Mary’s. We have an amazing research culture, which I have got to know well through my work on the Research Excellence Framework. I look forward to developing and growing our research output and supporting my amazing academic colleagues”.

In Jamie’s role as Associate Dean, he was responsible for overseeing and coordinating the University’s Research Excellence Framework 2021 (REF 2021) submission to Unit of Assessment 24 in which St Mary’s increased its grade point average for this unit by 43.5% from 2014.

The 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF) results published in 2022 also found that the majority of research submitted by St Mary’s was 4* World Leading or 3* Internationally Excellent in its originality, significance, and rigour.

Having completed his undergraduate studies in Psychology at the University of Birmingham, Jamie subsequently completed an M.Sc. in Sport Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University where he also undertook his Ph.D. having been awarded a research studentship by the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences.

Jamie’s personal research interests are focused upon the study of expert performance and factors that influence the acquisition of skill, spanning cognitive science, psychology, and sport science. To date, Jamie has published over 70 peer-reviewed research articles, as well as book chapters and monographs. Jamie’s international renown is illustrated by his having delivered on invited symposia and keynote presentations across three continents. Jamie is also Associate Editor with two leading international journals.