Head of School Professor Fiona Devine, CBE, OBE, was named in the 2019 Honours list for services to the social sciences. Professor Devine joined the School as acting Head of School in 2013 before taking the role permanently in 2014.
She was previously Head of Sociology (2004-7), Head of the School of Social Sciences (2009-13) and Co-Director of Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) (2012-4) at the University which she first joined in 1994. Prior to Manchester, she worked at the University of Liverpool, the Policy Studies Institute, and the former Department of Employment in London. She studied Sociology and Government as an undergraduate at the University of Essex where she also completed an MA and PhD.
Fiona's research interests are in the related fields of social stratification and mobility (with a comparative focus including the US), work and employment, and politics and participation. With a team of colleagues from the LSE, York, Durham and MMU, she was involved in the BBC’s Great British Class Survey, an online survey completed by over 300,000 thousand people and a class calculator completed by 9 million people. The results have appeared in the book, Social Class in the 21st Century, published by Penguin in 2015.
Fiona is also currently a Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Poverty and Inequality, Stanford University, USA. She is an Honorary Professor in the Institute for Social Sciences and the Department of Sociology at the University of Queensland, Australia and continues to work with colleagues there.
She was awarded an OBE for services to social sciences in 2010, elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) in 2011 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (FRSA). Fiona is a companion of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). She was elected onto the Assembly of the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce in 2015.
