Dame Nancy Jane Rothwell (born 2 October 1955) is a British physiologist. She has served as president and vice-chancellor of the University of Manchester since July 2010, having served as Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor until January 2010. Rothwell served as non-executive director of pharmaceuticals company AstraZeneca from 2006 to 2015, co-chair of the Council for Science and Technology and past President of the Royal Society of Biology. She is a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester and since September 2020 has been chair of the Russell Group, which represents 24 of the leading universities in the UK. In March 2021, students at the University of Manchester passed a vote of no confidence in Rothwell due to her response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Education Rothwell was born in Tarleton, a village near Preston, Lancashire. She was educated at Penwortham Girls' Grammar School and then went to college where she took A-levels in maths, physics, chemistry and art, having dropped biology aged 14. She enrolled at the University of London and obtained a first-class degree in physiology (1976) and a Doctor of Philosophy degree (1979) from Queen Elizabeth College, now part of King's College, London. Rothwell was later awarded a Doctor of Science degree in 1987 by King's College London and an honorary Doctor of Law degree from the University of Bath in 2009. Career and research Rothwell's early research identified mechanisms of energy balance regulation, obesity and cachexia. In 1984 she was awarded a Royal Society Research Fellowship and relocated to Manchester in 1987 and numerous grants by the BBSRC. She was appointed to a chair in physiology in 1994, then a Medical Research Council research chair in 1998. Her current research focusses on the role of inflammation in brain disease and has identified the role of the cytokine interleukin-1 (IL-1) in diverse forms of brain injury. Her studies have begun to elucidate the mechanisms regulating IL-1 release and its action and her group have conducted the first early clinical trial of an IL-1 inhibitor in strokes. She served as president of the British Neuroscience Association and a council member of Medical Research Council (MRC). From October 2004, Rothwell served as vice-president for research of the university. In 2010 she was overseeing a research group of about 20 scientists, with significant external funding and was announced to succeed Alan Gilbert as president and vice-chancellor of the University of Manchester on 1