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Head of Guildford School of Acting, University of Surrey

The University of Surrey is happy to announce the appointment of Dr Catherine McNamara as the new Head of the Guildford School of Acting (GSA), following an extensive search process. 

Dr McNamara is currently serving as Head of School (Art, Design and Performance) within the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Portsmouth. Prior to this, she spent 16 years at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (University of London), holding various roles including Course Leader of the MA Applied Theatre (Drama in the Community & Drama Education) and latterly, Director of Learning, Teaching and Student Experience. 

Professor Graham Miller, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Surrey, said: 

“Dr McNamara brings a wealth of experience in the intersection between conservatoire and university that will be invaluable as GSA moves forward to meet the challenges facing the sector, and I am excited by the expertise that she will bring to the University of Surrey.” 

Dr McNamara added: 

“I am very much looking forward to taking up the role of Head of GSA and working with the staff, visiting professionals, the students and alumni there. GSA consistently delivers world-class education and training for the creative industries. I’m looking forward to building on the School's long-standing successes by working collectively to lead the university-conservatoire into the future.” 


Professor and Chair in Business Analytics, University of Surrey

Professor Ali Emrouznejad has been appointed Professor and Chair in Business Analytics at Surrey Business School.  He joins Surrey from Aston University, where he was Head of the Business Analytics Group at Aston Business School. His areas of research interest include performance measurement and management, efficiency and productivity analysis as well as data mining and big data. He holds an MSc in applied mathematics and received his PhD in operational research and systems from Warwick Business School, UK. Having got PhD in the area of ata Envelopment Analysis (DEA), in 1998, he has joined to the development team of Performance Indicators (PI) in Higher Education (HE) at HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England). The PI in HE has been widely published and it is now an annual publication of HESA (Higher Education Statistical Agency).

He has also collaborated on several research projects (1) “Aassessing cost efficiencies in higher education” funded by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) (2) “Improving efficiency and productivity of hospitals and healthcare systems in several African countries” funded by WHO-Africa (World Health Organization). (3) Project on “Analysis of efficiencies and productivity evolution in manufacturing industries with CO2 emissions” funded by Royal Academy of Engineering (4) “Measuring efficiency of small-scale sugarcane growers in Africa” funded by British Council and several others. (5) “Use of Machin Learning to optimise milk yields and animal feed in the supply chain through to the cheese manufacturing processes” funded by Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP).

Prof Emrouznejad is editor of Annals of Operations Research, guest editor or associate editor to number of other journals including: European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Operational Research Society, OR Spectrum, RAIOR-Operations Research, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, IMA journal of Management Mathematics, Journal of Medical Systems, International Journal of Energy Management Sector, and Data Envelopment Analysis journal. He is also member of editorial boards of several other scientific journals including EURO Journal on Decision Processes, International Journal of Society Systems Science, International Journal of Applied Decision Sciences, and Central European Review of Economics and Management.

He has published over 200 articles in top ranked journals, he also is author/editor of several books.


Chair in Responsible Research in Marketing, University of Liverpool

Professor Michael Haenlein has been appointed Chair in Responsible Research in Marketing at the University of Liverpool Management School.  He is also Professor of Marketing at ESCP Business School, where he serves as the Scientific Director of the ESCP Research Center on Big Data.

Professor Haenlein holds a Ph.D. from the WHU, Otto Beisheim School of Management (2004), and a Habilitation from the Pantheon-Sorbonne University (2013). He holds Visiting Positions at Kozminski University in Warsaw (Poland) and the Trinity College in Dublin (Ireland). As a consultant, he has worked with many international companies in various industry sectors such as telecommunications, financial services, technology, and private equity.

Michael’s research interest and expertise deal with analyzing how digital technologies impact a firm’s customer relationship management (CRM) activities. In this space, Michael has examined the relationship between social networks and customer profitability and, more broadly, the concepts of Word-of-Mouth, Social Influence, and Influencer Marketing. More recently, he has focused on Artificial Intelligence.

Professor Haenlein has published in journals such as the Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS), International Journal of Research in Marketing (IJRM), the California Management Review, and Business Horizons. He counts among the top 50 most cited marketing academics worldwide, based on Google Scholar. Michael is the most cited researcher in the field of Word-of-Mouth, among the top three in the area of Customer Relationship Management and the top five in the field of Social Influence. Since 2020, Michael is included in the Claviate Highly Cited Researchers Ranking. This ranking recognizes the true pioneers in their fields over the last decade, demonstrated by the production of multiple highly-cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in the Web of Science.