Seven new professors at UWI

The University of The West Indies has announced that seven senior lecturers have been appointed professors with effect from October 4.

The promotion to professorship, the highest academic rank at the university, according to a UWI release, is only made after a rigorous assessment process that includes consultation with the deans of the applicants, the faculty assessment committees and endorsements from external assessors who review the candidates’ original works.

“Such careful scrutiny is in line with the UWI’s focus on the advancement of knowledge through excellence in teaching, research, innovation, intellectual leadership, and outreach,” the UWI said.

The newly appointed professors include Basil Reid of the St Augustine campus, now professor of archaeology in the Department of History.

He was the lead archaeologist of the Red House archaeological excavations in Port of Spain from 2013 to 2015. The excavation resulted from the discoveries of pre-colonial material culture commingled with European material culture in several archaeological strata at that site.

The Red House project involved collaborations with local and international scholars. Findings from the project will be published in Reid’s forthcoming book An Archaeological Study of the Red House, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

Also bearing the title professor are Alok Kumar and T Alafia Samuels of Cave Hill Campus, Barbados. Kumar is professor of paediatrics, in the Faculty of Medical Sciences and associate consultant, Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Barbados. He has made a significant research contribution in the field of infectious diseases of public health importance, with a high volume of research output.

Samuels is director of the George Alleyne Chronic Disease Research Centre, a unit of the UWI’s Caribbean Institute for Health Research. She is a UWI medical graduate and holds a master’s in public health and a PhD in chronic disease epidemiology, both degrees awarded with honours from Johns Hopkins University.

The new professors at the Mona Campus, Jamaica, are Roger Gibson, Donna P Hope, Clinton Hutton and Joseph Plummer. Gibson is head of psychiatry and professor in the Department of Community Health and Psychiatry. Hope is a professor at the Institute of Caribbean Studies in the Faculty of Humanities and Education. Her areas of academic specialisation include cultural studies, Caribbean studies, media and communication, popular culture, Jamaican popular culture, creative/cultural industries, gender and sexuality, politics and youth development.

Hutton is professor in political philosophy and Caribbean and African diasporic culture, art and aesthetics.

His work reportedly constitutes, in terms of quality and quantity, a substantial and impressive body of written and visual scholarship.

Plummer is professor and head of the Department of Surgery, Radiology, Anaesthesia and Intensive Care.

He is the recipient of several research grants, including one for the starting a colorectal cancer registry and a Chase Fund grant to improve advanced laparoscopic surgery in Jamaica.