Professor Hanifa Shah

Pro Vice-Chancellor STEAM, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Built Environment (CEBE), and Interim Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Design and Media (ADM)

Professor Hanifa Shah is Pro Vice-Chancellor STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Computing, Engineering, and the Built Environment. She is also interim Executive Dean of Arts, Design, and Media until the end of 2024.

Hanifa is responsible for setting the vision and direction for the faculties, providing strategic leadership, and ensuring effective people, operational, and financial management. As the Pro Vice-Chancellor STEAM, Hanifa leads the STEAM ambitions as outlined in the University’s Strategy for 2030 and Beyond, including embedding the STEAM agenda into education, research, and enterprise across all faculties.

Hanifa joined Birmingham City University in 2010 as Associate Dean for Research and Enterprise. Before this, she held senior roles at Staffordshire University for 16 years, including Director of the Centre for Information, Intelligence and Security Systems. During this time, she also held a Visiting Professorship at the University of Manchester. Her wide-ranging experience of higher education spans teaching, research, enterprise and industry engagement combined with leading academic strategy development and organisational change.

Hanifa was sponsored by Cadbury Schweppes to undertake a BSc (Hons) in Computing Science at Staffordshire University. She went on to achieve a PhD in Computing from Aston University, followed by three years as a software engineer with BT. She later returned to academia as a lecturer at Aston University before gaining a Masters in Sustainability from Cambridge University.

She is a Principal Fellow of the Advance HE, a Chartered Engineer, and a Fellow of the British Computer Society (BCS), and she has supervised 25 PhDs, published over 100 papers, and secured significant levels of funding from EPSRC, the EU, and UK industry. Hanifa is a trustee of the Millennium Point Trust (a STEM charity), is on the board of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Institute of Technology, and champions the participation of women and girls in science and engineering through initiatives such as WISE (Women in Science and Engineering).