Give me Inspiration! The Paradigm Shift with Professor Sharon Peacock FMedSci CBE - 10th May 2024

What do academics actually do? What motivates them to get out of bed each morning and to deliver what is - or in many cases what isn’t - expected of them? For a student setting out, the life of senior academics may seem very mysterious, particularly as many may end up taking on responsibilities and activities far removed from where an individual started. The trajectory from student to senior academic is rarely a straight line, with twists, setbacks, time out and/or opportunities (taken or declined) all to be combined with a personal life. This series of conversations aims to explore the individual paths of some eminent academics who have made it to the top in their own particular ways. How have they found their own solutions to ‘life’, what tips do they wish they’d been given earlier on, and what might they view, retrospectively, with most pleasure or regret?
Sharon Peacock is Professor of Microbiology and Public Health in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge and an Honorary Consultant Microbiologist at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Sharon left school and 16 and came to academia later in life. Over the course of her varied career, Sharon came to specialise in pathogen genomics, antimicrobial resistance, and a range of tropical diseases. She was the founding director of COG-UK (the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium), formed in April 2020 to provide SARS-CoV-2 genomes towards the UK pandemic response. Prior to this, she dedicated more than a decade to the translation of pathogen sequencing into clinical and public health microbiology, as well as using sequencing to examine the transmission of antibiotic-resistant bacteria between humans, livestock, and the environment.
Sharon was awarded the Microbiology Society Unilever Colworth Prize for outstanding contribution to translational microbiology in 2018, and the Microbiology Society Marjory Stephenson Prize for exceptional contributions to the discipline of microbiology in 2023. She was awarded a CBE for services to Medical Microbiology in 2015, and in 2021 received the Medical Research Council Millennium Medal.
Sharon is Master Elect of Churchill College, and will take up the role on 1st October 2024.