Professor Marcia Wilson
NDA24 Judge
Professor Marcia Wilson
London Metropolitan University
Professor Marcia Wilson is a multiple award-winning academic leader and researcher who has pioneered programmes to address inequalities to improve the staff and student experience in the education sector. Her work has been used by Universities UK (UUK) in their initiatives aimed at tackling racism and she was a member of the Advisory group focusing on producing guidance for Tackling Racial Harassment in HE. Marcia has been recognised as a national Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) lead in the ‘d&i Leaders Global Benchmarking Survey’ in 2021 and 2023.
Before joining London Metropolitan University in September 2023, Marcia was the inaugural Dean of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at The Open University (OU) where she was a member of the Vice-Chancellor’s Executive Team and she led on a number of cross-institutional projects including the creation of an Institutional EDI Plan. Prior to joining the OU, Marcia spent more than a decade at the University of East London (UEL) where she was the founding Dean of their Office for Institutional Equity (OIE), the first department of its kind in the UK and has been used by institutions across the country as the blueprint when planning their own EDI interventions.
Prior to establishing the OIE at the UEL, Marcia held various roles including Head of the University’s School of Health, Sport and Bioscience (where she was also an Associate Dean), and Head of the Sport Science department. She spent 10 years studying and working in the USA. She has also worked for eight years in sport psychology at the Football Association and with the Rugby Football Union with elite women’s teams and coaches.
Marcia is a regular speaker on Advance HE’s ‘Aurora’ programme. She has recently delivered leadership presentations to the Premier League and is London Met’s Academic Lead for the ‘100 Black Women Professors NOW!’ programme created by the Women’s Higher Education Network. She is regularly invited to speak on building anti-racist institutions and women in leadership.
