Professor Alice P. Gast

Professor Alice P. Gast was President of Imperial College London from 2014 to 2022.

As President, she promoted collaboration and societal engagement, prioritised entrepreneurship and innovation, increased Imperial’s visibility around the world, developed closer working relationships with government and stakeholders, made Imperial an influential voice on Brexit and political challenges, enhanced alumni relations and philanthropic opportunities, focused on celebrating excellence, and oversaw the rapid development of Imperial’s White City Campus.

Prior to her appointment at Imperial, Professor Gast was the 13th President of Lehigh University from August 2006 to August 2014. Other leadership roles include serving as the Vice-President for Research and Associate Provost and Robert T. Haslam Chair in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2001 - 2006.

Professor Gast’s academic interest is in surface and interfacial phenomena, in particular the behaviour of complex fluids. She has co-authored numerous scientific publications and a classic textbook on colloid and surface phenomena. She was a faculty member at Stanford University from 1985 to 2001, being promoted to full professor in 1995. She was also affiliated with the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory.

Professor Gast is a member of a number of UK and international advisory committees and boards including the National Academy of Engineering; the League of European Research Universities (LERU), the Academic Research Council for the Singapore Ministry of Education and the Technical University of Munich (TUM)’s Institute for Advanced Study. She was made a United States Science Envoy to the Caucasus and Central Asia in 2010. In 2012, she was appointed to the board of directors of Chevron Corporation. Professor Gast is a member of the World Economic Forum Global University Leaders' Forum (GULF) and is Co-Vice-Chair of the Advisory Board for the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR).

Professor Gast is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the City and Guilds of London Institute, and the Académie des Technologies, France.

She has been awarded honorary degrees by the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Pierre and Marie Curie, and the University of Western Ontario. In 2017 she received an honorary professorship from Tsinghua University.

Presidential Priorities

Professor Alice Gast’s priorities during her tenure have included: 

Presidential Priorities

A Global University

  • Promoting Imperial’s international presence and internationalism. Imperial has been named as the UK’s most international university for the last three years. Continued growth in international partnerships include a series of seed funds to kickstart collaborations with peers at MIT and in Africa, at Tsinghua University, and across Europe.
  • Hosting and increasing Imperial’s influence with world leaders, including heads of state, government and senior ministers.
  • Developing new forms of international partnership, such as UMI Abraham de Moivre, a collaboration between Imperial’s Department of Mathematics and CNRS of France, and the College's strategic partnership with the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in education, research and innovation. 
  • Increasing Imperial’s visibility worldwide. The President’s views and analyses have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC, Economist, Financial Times, Le Monde, World Economic Forum, South China Morning Post and Xinhua, among other global media outlets. Imperial academics, led by the President, now play a prominent role in the World Economic Forum.
  • Dealing with Brexit to make Imperial’s European future clear, support European staff and students, encourage new European collaborations, and influence leaders in Westminster and Brussels.

Community Engagement

  • Strengthening societal engagement, in White City, Exhibition Road and throughout London as Imperial brings the benefits of research and discovery to all corners of society through outreach, public engagement and work with patients. The Invention Rooms, Dangoor Reach Out Makerspace and School of Public Health in White City, and the Great Exhibition Road Festival in South Kensington, show how Imperial is a pioneer in university-community relations. 
  • Closer working relationships with government and stakeholders as Imperial influences the policymaking process on research and innovation, industrial strategy, visas and talent mobility, and higher education funding. The President has provided evidence to Parliament, convened industry stakeholders, serves on the board of UKRI, and is a member of the Mayor of London’s Brexit Advisory Group. 
  • Encouraging excellence through the President’s Awards for Excellence, Garden Parties, Honours Dinners, Excellence Fund for Frontier Research, Excellence Fund for Learning and Teaching Innovation, and other initiatives.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

  • Supporting innovation and entrepreneurship as a core part of Imperial’s student and staff experience. Alongside the Deans, Vice-Provosts and many other staff, the President promotes competitions like WE Innovate and the Venture Catalyst Challenge, which are enabling hundreds of Imperial students, including rapidly growing numbers of women, to try out their business ideas. Imperial’s incubation facilities support academic and student startups that have attracted hundreds of millions of pounds of investment. There are now 136 active startups founded by Imperial people - a record high, supporting 1,300 jobs.
  • Promoting collaboration and partnerships that support research and education, such as those with Dyson, Google DeepMind, Agilent, Blenheim Chalcott, Solvay, Aramco, Goldman Sachs, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust.
  • Overseeing the new White City Campus, which is bringing together academia, industry and enterprise on an unprecedented scale. Innovative and entrepreneurial spaces such as the Translation & Innovation Hub (I-HUB) and Imperial White City Incubator are enriching our world-class innovation ecosystem. 

Long-term Foundations

  • Developing and implementing the College Strategy with the Deans and academic leaders, centred on excellent foundations, people, partners and enablers.
  • Supporting Advancement and securing transformative philanthropic support, including the launch of Imperial’s campaign for a new School of Public Health in White City.
  • Enhancing alumni relations with Imperial’s 200,000-strong global community.

Writings and Speeches

President Gast is widely known for her influential voice on innovation, collaboration, globalisation, technology and the future of higher education. Her views and analyses have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC, Economist, Financial Times, Le Monde, World Economic Forum, South China Morning Post and Xinhua, among other global media outlets. 

Writings and Speeches

Interviews, blogs and articles