King’s Birthday MBE honour for former York St John University leader

Dr Amanda Wilcox has been awarded the honour of Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours List.   

The MBE for services to Higher Education is in recognition of her role as Pro Vice Chancellor at York St John University between 2018 And 2022. During that time, Amanda led the University’s response to the Covid pandemic.   

Upon receiving the award, Amanda said: “I am delighted and honoured to receive this recognition for my work in Higher Education, a sector within which I am wholly committed and hugely proud. This means such a lot to me; not just the award, but that colleagues at York St John University took time to make a submission. The University played such a special part in my life, particularly through the Covid period, and I thank everyone I worked with during my time there.” 

Vice Chancellor of York St John University, Professor Karen Bryan, said:  

“Under Amanda’s leadership, the University actively engaged with the local pandemic response, playing a major role in multi-agency efforts to manage the outbreak. Amanda was relentless in her support for students and her focus on student and staff welfare, providing vision, tenacity and results over and above that expected from her role. Throughout her long and successful career in the sector, she has been a role model for acting with integrity and prioritising student welfare and social mobility. I warmly congratulate her on the award of her MBE.”  

In a letter of support, York’s former Director of Health, Sharon Stoltz, praised Amanda’s commitment as “heart-warming and very impressive”, saying: 

“Amanda’s vision for symptom-free testing for students and residents in York delivered a state-of-the-art testing partnership between the University and the City of York Council. Under her leadership the York St John University testing site ... opened up to residents becoming the first testing site in the city to offer asymptomatic testing to residents using the new rapid Lateral Flow Devices. This had an enormous impact, with thousands of residents accessing tests which greatly contributed to keeping the levels of infection in control.”      

Amanda is currently the University Secretary of Durham University, where she is responsible for overall governance, assurance and legal compliance.  She has extensive experience in higher education and is an authoritative and authentic leader, successfully leading professional service operations and change programmes, both at an institutional and service level. 

She has also held senior roles at the Office for Students, the Higher Education Funding Council, the University of Hull and the Quality Assurance Agency.  Amanda has an MBA from the UCL Institute of Education, a PGCE from the University of Huddersfield and a PhD in parasitology and immunology from the University of Leeds.