Sarah Barrow

As Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Arts and Humanities at UEA, my primary role is to serve as broker, translator and champion for the work of the Faculty internally and externally and to emphasise the positive and profound value and impact of our subjects on individuals and society.

I have a varied background in HE in terms of institution and subject, along with wide experience of leadership roles in the arts, culture, education and human rights sectors beyond HE.

The role is also very much one of providing the best possible environment – cultural as well as physical - for all staff and students in our Faculty. To that end, I work with and via our full Faculty Executive team and the University’s support services.

My cross-University leadership activities at UEA are in Employability and Equality & Diversity, both enormously important areas that cut across all of our work and provide many opportunities for developing new partnerships.

I started the Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Film and Media post at UEA in July 2017.

Prior to that, I worked at the University of Lincoln for just over 7 years, as Deputy Head of the College of Arts, as staff member of the Board of Governors and as Head of School for Film and Media. I also represented the University on the Lincoln Cultural Arts Partnership board.

Before Lincoln, I led the English, Film, Communications and Media Studies department at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, which included a comprehensive languages programme, and for a period was Associate Dean for Learning and Teaching there.

I have served several external roles, including as Board member of the Media Archives for Central England, as Chair of the Trustees of Wintercomfort for the Homeless and as a funding board member of the Cambridgeshire Film Consortium. I remain a Trustee for the English and Media Centre, a national body for literacy, and am also on the Board for the Forum Trust in Norwich.

I read Modern Languages at St John's College, Cambridge where my passion for film began when I was encouraged to explore it as a medium through which to discover new cultures. I completed an Erasmus-funded Master’s in European Film and Media, based in Dijon and Manchester, before returning to work in the International Projects Division of the University of Cambridge’s Examinations Syndicate. I travelled across South East Asia, teaching and training English teachers. 

I completed my PhD at Sheffield in Hispanic Studies and continue to conduct research on Latin American cinema and cultural policy, travelling to the region annually for fieldwork.

Latin American cinemas

Peruvian cinema, media and culture

Arts, place-making and cultural policy