Professor Alan Spivey is Interim Vice-Provost (Education and Student Experience)
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Professor Alan C. Spivey
The Vice-Provost (Education and Student Experience) is responsible for facilitating and supporting the provision of high-quality education and delivering an exceptional student experience. Within this remit, the Vice-Provost (Education and Student Experience) provides advice to the President, Provost, University Management Board and Senate on all matters relating to education.
Alan Spivey is a Professor of Synthetic Chemistry in the Synthesis Section of the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London. He began his research career studying for a DPhil with Professor Sir Jack Baldwin (Oxford University) developing new syntheses of enantiomerically pure beta-substituted alpha-amino acids.
Following post doctoral experience in the labs of the late Professor Wolfgang Oppolzer (University of Geneva, Switzerland) and Professor Sir Alan Battersby (University of Cambridge, UK) investigating alkaloid total synthesis and tetrapyrrole biosynthesis respectively, he was appointed to his first independent position as a lecturer in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Sheffield, UK in 1996.
He moved with his research group to Imperial College London in January 2003. The focus of the group’s research is the development of useful new synthetic concepts and methods and the demonstration of their utility by application to the synthesis of biologically important molecules. Particular interests include asymmetric acylation, sulfonylation and phosphorylation; Ge-chemistry; total synthesis of natural products; asthma and cancer therapeutics; and chemical biology relating to agrochemicals.
He held the position of Director of Undergraduate Studies for Chemistry at Imperial College London from 2007-2013, Chair of the Faculty of Natural Sciences (FoNS) Education Committee and Vice Dean (Education) in the Faculty of Natural Sciences from 2013-2017, and Associate Provost (Learning and Teaching) from 2017-2025.
Professor Spivey accepted the role of Interim Vice-Provost (Education and Student Experience), beginning on 1 October 2025, for a term of one year.