Award-winning author Bernardine Evaristo, poet and playwright Joan Anim-Addo and the first woman ever to be appointed head of a UK dental school, Cynthia Pine, are among 40 phenomenal women being celebrated in the first ever photographic exhibition to honour Britain's black female professors.

The exhibition, Phenomenal Women: Portraits of UK Black Female Professors, features portraits of 40 professors across a broad range of subjects including law, medicine, creative writing and sociology.  It was researched and curated by Dr Nicola Rollock, Reader in Equity & Education at Goldsmiths University of London, who has been examining the career experiences and strategies of black female professors at UK higher education establishments over the past three years.  Phenomenal Women: Portraits of UK Black Female Professors, aims to highlight the presence and excellence of all the women included and provide a platform for debate about what it takes to reach this highest level of academic scholarship. The 40 women have all been professors at some point over the past three years. The project builds on Dr Rollock’s 2019 research which showed the barriers faced by black women as they worked to navigate their way through higher education and the strategies they used to help them reach professorship.

Fewer than 1% of professors in the UK are black despite increases in overall levels of academic staff. Black women represent the smallest group when both race and gender are considered together. They are three times less likely to be professors than their white female counterparts and half as likely as black men.

The portraits were taken by photographer Bill Knight OBE, who travelled across England and Wales to capture the images.

Wording by the Mayor of London.