Geoff Ward (academic)
Geoffrey 'Geoff' Ward, FRSA is a British academic specialising in American literature. He has been Principal of Homerton College, University of Cambridge since 2013.
Geoff Ward was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Clare College, Cambridge, where he read English Literature and graduated with a first-class degree in 1975. He formerly worked as Lecturer then Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Liverpool. Following a year spent lecturing in Japan, he took up a Chair and the Headship of Department at the University of Dundee in 1995. His first book Statutes of Liberty: The New York School of Poets was succeeded by other books and articles including The Writing of America: Literature and Cultural Identity from the Puritans to the Present, which he researched during a year spent in the USA as a Fellow of the Leverhulme Foundation. In 2002, he was made a Deputy Principal at Dundee, leaving four years later to serve as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and then Vice Principal at Royal Holloway, University of London, before coming to Homerton as Principal in 2013.
In addition to his scholarly work, he has written and presented occasional broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, most recently on David Foster Wallace. A Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, he has also been elected to an Honorary Fellowship at Harris Manchester College, Oxford.
