Email: sonia.kumar@stmarys.ac.uk
Biography
Prof Kumar is the Founding Executive Dean of Medicine at St Mary’s in London, leading their new School of Medicine, which will welcome its first cohort in September 2026. Prof Kumar has over two decades experience as a GP and educationalist, specialising in community-based health and education for the benefit of society, which will be core to the new School.
Sonia studied Medicine at King’s College London, where she also gained a Bachelor of Science and Master’s degree (distinction), and also holds a Fellowship with the Royal College of General Practitioners. Prior to this role she was the Associate Dean in Community Engagement at the University of Leeds, where she led the university’s civic mission in the city and local region. She established CENTRE (community engagement network in research education and civic engagement) working with colleagues across the university and key stakeholders to maximise the university’s social impact, enabling students to gain key graduate attributes and citizenship skills needed for our future workforce and broader global change.
Prof Kumar worked at the London Deanery and had a 10-year award-winning tenure as the Director of Undergraduate Primary Care Education at Imperial College London. Over this time she won 19 awards for her team including the Imperial Presidents Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching Excellence and the CATE collaborative team award from AdvanceHE. At Imperial she founded MEdIC (medical education innovation and research centre) a research centre focussed on aligning medical education with community priorities and workforce needs.
Over the last 20 years Prof Kumar has worked with numerous national and international collaborators, been an external examiner for University College London and provided external consultancy including the FCDO in Mexico and Pharma. She has published extensively and has been invited to present across the UK and globally, and is a Visiting Professor at Imperial College London, University of Leeds and SBV Pondicherry in India.
She lives in London with her husband and two lively teenage girls, has recently taken up cold water swimming, and loves walking in nature, reading, art and theatre.