Professor Julia Elizabeth King is Vice-Chancellor at Aston University, a position she has held since December 2006. After an academic career at Cambridge University, she joined Rolls-Royce plc in 1994, where she held a number of senior business and engineering appointments.  She returned to academia in 2004 as Principal of the Engineering Faculty at Imperial College, London.

Professor King works closely with the UK Government as a non-executive member of the Management Board of the Department for Business Innovation & Skills, and through her membership of the Committee on Climate Change, the Ministerial Advisory Group on Manufacturing and the National Security Forum. She is a member of the group appointed to conduct an independent review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance.  She spent four years advising the Ministry of Defence as Chair of the Defence Scientific Advisory Council, and five years as a non-executive member of the Technology Strategy Board.

Professor King is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of Transportation, and the Governing Board of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology.  Her research has been recognised by the Grunfeld, Bengough and Kelvin medals. Julia is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and was awarded a CBE in July 1999.

Professor Julia King is participating in the Inclusion in education: responding to changing societies session.