Freya Johnston

Professor Freya Johnston began as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education) on 1 September 2025. She took her undergraduate and doctoral degrees in English at Trinity College, Cambridge; as an undergraduate, she also studied German literature at the Free University in Berlin. She was appointed Enid Welsford Junior Research Fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1999 and then served as Fellow and Director of Studies at Christ’s College, Cambridge before moving to the University of Warwick in 2004. Three years later she came to Oxford, where she is Professor of English and Hazel Eardley-Wilmot Tutorial Fellow at St Anne’s College. Professor Johnston has served as Associate Head (Education) of the Humanities Division (2023-5), Dean of St Anne’s College (2023-5), Junior Proctor (2020-21), Director of Graduate Studies in English (2014-17), and Deputy Chair of Faculty Board (2013-14). Her research centres on literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, especially the works of Samuel Johnson and Jane Austen. She is co-editor, with Seamus Perry and Christopher Ricks, of the quarterly journal Essays in Criticism (Oxford University Press).

As Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education), Professor Johnston is responsible for the University’s strategies and policies for teaching, learning, admissions and student support.