Professor Dame Jessica Rawson
Professor Dame Jessica Rawson was Merton’s first female Warden, serving for 16 years from 1994 to 2010. She was also Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 2006 to 2011 and was appointed Professor of Chinese Art and Archaeology at Oxford in 2000.
Jessica Rawson read History at the University of Cambridge and then went on to the University of London, where she completed a further degree in Chinese Language and Literature. She began her career in the Civil Service as Assistant Principal at the Ministry of Health, before going on to the British Museum to serve over the years 1968-1994 as Assistant Keeper, Deputy Keeper, and finally, Keeper of the Department of Oriental Antiquities.
Professor Rawson’s primary academic interests are in early China’s history and material culture. She is best known for her research on the interaction of the peoples of central China with those along the borders with northern Eurasia, which resulted in major innovations, such as the introduction of metallurgy to China. She has presented her research as a Global Fellow at Peking University in 2017 and as an Academic Fellow at the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou from 2017 to 2019. She has also taught at the Universities of Cambridge, London and East Anglia, and has held visiting professorships at the universities of Heidelberg and Chicago. For the academic year 2013-2014, she held the position of Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge.
Professor Rawson has been a member of a number of academic committees in Britain and around the world, especially in China. She has received many honours, including her appointment as a Fellow of the British Academy in 1990, her election as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012, and her receipt in 2017 of the Charles Lang Freer Medal from the Freer Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. She was made an Honorary Fellow of Merton following the end of her Wardenship in 2010 and an Honorary Professor at Peking University in 2019. Professor Rawson received a CBE in 1994 and was awarded the title of Dame in 2002 for services to oriental studies.
