The School of Divinity is delighted to announce the appointment of Professor Rachel Muers as the new Chair of Divinity. The Chair of Divinity is the oldest one in the University, going back to 1620. The holder provides intellectual and academic leadership in the area of Theology and Ethics, contributing to the School’s programme of research, knowledge exchange, teaching and administration. Rachel will be the first woman to hold the post. Image Rachel is currently Professor of Theology at the University of Leeds, where she’s been since 2007. She studied Theology and Religious Studies at Cambridge, and held the Margaret Smith Research Fellowship at Girton College, Cambridge from 2001 to 2003. She was then Lecturer in Theology at the University of Exeter from 2003 to 2007. Rachel’s academic interests and major publications centre around the relationships between modern Christian doctrine and ethics. She was the principal investigator on the AHRC-funded research project 'Vegetarianism as Spiritual Choice in Historical and Contemporary Theology', on a British Academy project 'Women Reading Difficult Scriptures', and on the AHRC 'Everyday Lives in War' collaborative project 'Re-Imagining a True Social Order', working with Quakers in Britain. Rachel is a member of the World Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission and a former president of the Society for the Study of Theology. “I’m honoured and excited to have the opportunity to join the School of Divinity. The School has a long tradition of outstanding scholarship that’s rooted in a strong and diverse academic community and engaged with the urgent questions that contemporary society faces. Theology matters now as much as it ever has, and it’s always a shared task. I’m looking forward to taking up new challenges, working with colleagues and students at Edinburgh”. Rachel Muers Alongside her core areas of interest, Rachel is enthusiastic about collaborative and interdisciplinary teaching, and about courses that enable students to make connections between their academic studies and the world beyond the university Rachel Muers will take up her role in August this year This article was published on 2024-03-19
