BNU appoints five new professors to lead Inclusive Research and Knowledge Exchange strategy
Buckinghamshire New University (BNU) welcomes the appointment of five new professors who will be joining the university across various Schools to help lead our new Inclusive Research and Knowledge Exchange strategy.
The university extends a warm welcome to Professor Fred Yamoah, Professor Adetoro Adegoke, Professor Nela Milic, Professor Qichun (Kit) Zhang and Professor Arinola Anneke Adefila.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Damien Page, said: “With our new Inclusive Research and Knowledge Exchange strategy now in place, I’m delighted to announce the appointment of five new professors who will be joining BNU to accelerate our practice and help to lead this strategy.”
“As a university, inclusion needs to be core to how we work, how we teach and how we research.”
The strategy actively promotes diversity in all its forms, ensures equitable access to research opportunities, and will cultivate an environment where all voices can be heard, valued and celebrated. In doing so, we aim to foster a high-impact research community at BNU that reflects the richness of the world we seek to understand and improve.
Meet BNU's five newest professors below:
Professor Nela Milic is a senior researcher, lecturer, artist and consultant with more than 25 years’ experience managing and executing projects with artists, academics, journalists and community groups.
She conducted research for Gulbenkian Foundation about participatory art, Greater London Authority about creative responses to COVID-19 and worked on the project TimeCase: Memory in Action with a Grundtvig grant.
Professor Milic is a co-chair of Art and Memory Working Group of Memory Studies Association (MSA). She evaluates EU’s Creative Europe, COST applications in humanities and is a consultant for the Science Fund of Republic of Serbia.
She is part of the AHRC funded Peace and Conflict Cultural Network and Arts and Reconciliation research project for which she has created an installation Text Illuminations.
She is co-editor of a Special Issue of the Journal of Organisational Aesthetics about London Design Festival at LCC and Contemporary Ideas on the Relationship Between Autobiographical Memory and Photography, IGI Global (2023).
Professor Milic is on editorial board of the Journal of Arts and Communities, a member of TRAIN research centre at UAL, a Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy and part of eight PhD supervisory teams. She has acted as an external examiner at UNSW, Sydney and UPV/EHU University of the Basque Country and is a member of Community for Artistic and Architectural Research (CA²RE).
Professor Yamoah previously served as a Reader in Sustainability and Chair of Examiners at Birkbeck Business School, Birkbeck – University of London.
He is an experienced academic in higher education with a proven track record in teaching, research, curriculum development and managing funded research projects, as well as being a well published research academic with extensive leadership and executive management experience in higher education.
Professor Yamoah’s research interest in sustainability cuts across the business-society nexus and its consequences on public, private, and civic spheres for sustainable development. He has experience of developing successful research project/fellowship funding applications in business-related fields at national and international levels.
His research is consistently recognised as internationally excellent with several contributions published in leading international journals.
Professor Yamoah also holds an interdisciplinary PhD in Sustainability and Marketing. After obtaining his PhD, he served as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Value Chain Research, University of Kent, Canterbury. He has since worked in various sustainability related research academic positions as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Reader in the UK and abroad.
Professor Adetoro Adegoke's work focuses on reducing health inequalities, improving health, strengthening health care systems and strengthening the capacity of health training institutions.
She has over 26 years experience in health care delivery; higher education teaching and learning; experience in international development and leading multi-country research including in fragile or post-conflict states with special focus on health and wellbeing, equitable health, quality education, gender equality and women and girls’ empowerment.
Professor Adegoke has extensive experience providing Reproductive Maternal Newborn and Child Adolescent Health technical assistance and leading health programmes in 17 Low- and Middle-Income countries in Africa, Asia and South America.
Professor Adegoke is an internationally well-recognised expert in the field of global public health. She is a thought leader in reproductive, global and maternal health and she has been a force developing and implementing policies to reduce health inequalities; framing access to health and education and has led dialogues about equity, equality, inclusion, social justice and social impact.
Professor Qichun 'Kit' Zhang held a PhD degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Manchester.
Prior to becoming Professor of Inclusive AI at Buckinghamshire New University, he held positions as Associate Professor at the University of Bradford, Senior Lecturer at De Montfort University, and Senior Research Officer at the University of Essex.
Professor Zhang is a Chartered Engineer, holds Senior Membership in IEEE, and is a Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Currently, he serves as an Associate Editor for leading journals like the Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing (JIMS) and is a member of the EPSRC Peer-review College.
Professor Arinola Adefila trained to be an educator because of her strong belief in the profound social and cultural significance of learning cultures as transformative sites of human flourishing.
She has worked in schools, environmental consultancy, social care, and Higher Education for more than 20 years; developing insights around how variations created by political, geographical, and technological intermediaries establish and influence social policy, and a hierarchy of privileges.
Her career has focused on developing transformative learning environments and integrating lifelong and life-wide learning principles in global knowledge systems. Arinola’s research examines knowledge ecosystems, evidence-based pedagogies, and the dynamics of struggle around education, social policies, and development programs.
Professor Adefila’s future work will seek to deepen transdisciplinary research which has direct influence on structural realties and the complex dynamics of 21st century values and policies.